He sat there so still and so long, that if it had not been
for his resolute head and the blunt spires of his ears, he would have
appeared to an onlooker below as no more than a humpy finial on an
otherwise regularly built wall. Now and again the last inch of his
tail twitched slightly, like an independent member, as he contemplated
his thoughts.
Overhead the last glimmer of day was utterly gone, and in the place of
it the mysterious glow of night over a city hung high and luminous.
He, a town-bred cat, descended from generations of town-bred cats,
listened passively to the gentle roar of traffic that stood, to him,
for the running of brooks and the sighing of forest trees. It was to
him the auditory background of adventure, romance, and bitter war.
The energy of life ran strong in his veins and sinews. Once and again
as that, which was for him imaginative vision and anticipation,
asserted itself, he crisped his strong claws into the crumbling
mortar, shooting them, by an unconscious muscular action, from the
padded sheaths in which they lay. Once a furious yapping sounded from
a lighted window far beneath; but he scorned to do more than turn a
slow head in the direction of it: then once more he resumed his watch.
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