Chasing Cats and Catching Cold.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 123, 19 March 1872, Page 7

Chasing Cats and Catching Cold.

I The fact that Mr Oliver lived in a uniform >\v of houses in the Fourteenth Ward, says ie Philadelphia (U.S.) Sunday Dispatch, was ie reason why he was unfortunate. One ioonlight night a little time back the noise .•vie by cats on the roof was simply awful. liver lay in bed, trying in vain to get asleep, id grinding his teeth in rage, until the up- )«• b33am3 u:i3ndarable. Mr Oliver crept it of bed softly, so that his wife would not e awakened. He put on his slippers, seized h»ot with each hind, and, clad in snowy )I)J3 of night, he opined the trap door and uerged up in the roof. There were some lirty or forty cats out there holding a sort t general synod in the bracing air, and singlg glees. As Mr Oliver approached, the i;s m ivel over to the next roof. Mr Oliver Ivanced and threw a boot at them. They ir.i a Ijo'imed suddenly to the summit of ie a Ijoinin , f residence. Mr Oliver projected mfcher boot, and went over after the first is. In tais m inner the synod retreated un--1 the last, ro .v of twenty bouses was reached, hen the eat, arranged themselves along the ■ ' parapet, rallied up their furs, curved up their i spines, an 1 spat furiously at Oliver. The 1) >!d wa'.'rior gitaered un his boots and dete":nined t.> ivctc it. lie walked back over a d izen hoi-ses and descended through a trapdo ir. He went down stairs to his bed-room, mil opened the door. There was a man in ■ the room in the act of walking up and down with the 1) iby. Before Oliver had recovered : fro ii his a n wenient, the man flung the baby . on the bed, and, seizing a revolver, began , fifing rapidly at Oliver. It then dawned upon Oliver that he had come down upon the wrong trap-door. He proceeded up stairs c Siglin suddenly, the man with the revolver : ; practising at him in a painful manner. Wiien Oliver readied the trap, he shut it quickly and stood upon it. The man tired through ', jjthe hoards, and hooked the door upon the Jiside. A moment after, Oliver heard him (ringing a watchman's rattle from the front indow. As soon as the neighbours knew lere was a man on the roof, they all flew up airs and fastened their trap-doors, and Mrs liver fastened hers with the Ann conviction Kit some predatory villain had entered Idle she slept, and stolen Mr Oliver. When '.• flie tried the door it was fast, and Mrs Oliver ■ -ovas screaming so fiercely that he could not -make himself heard. By this time the street '• "was filled with policemen, all of whom were '. blazing away at Oliver with their revolvers, "while the young men in the houses across the street kept up a steady fire with pistols, shotguns, and miscellaneousmissilc3. Oliver, whli every advantage for forming an opinion, .■said that Gettysburg was a mere skirmish to '■ 'I I*'" 1 *'" . -" m behind the chimney, and lay up against the bricks to keep himself warm, r"while the policemen stationed themselves all ■ around to capture him when he would slide down one of the waterspouts. Hut Oliver did not slide. He sat out on the roof all night, with the bitter air circulating through »|his two trifling garments, listening to the howling cats and to the occasional shouts from •the picket line below, and thinking of the old Jews who used to pray from the housetops, and wondering if Mussulmen were ever shot at or bothered by cats or policemen "when they practised devotions on their roofs. And then he wondered how it would do to take off his night-shirt, and wave it over the fcdgo as a Hag of truce ! He concluded not, because of the danger of a bullet from some misguided policeman not familiar with the rules of war. When daylight came the neighbours rallied in a crowd, armed with all uds of weapons, from howitzers down, and iinted t() the roof. Oliver was taken down, % 1 put to bed, and now he has more inmza for a man of his size than any other citizen in the Fourteenth Ward. He says that he is going to move as • soon as he gets well ;—he is going into a bouse that is next «oor to nobody ;—and a bouse that stands in the middle of a prairie of some kind ;—and he intends to stencil his name in white on the trap-door.