A PHOSPHORESCENT CAT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 280, 24 November 1881, Page 4

A PHOSPHORESCENT CAT.

They had a rare old time at the West-end recently. Mr Monkey's boy took the family cat and rubbed phosphorus all over him. It was about nightfall when he completed his job and let the cat go. The hoodoo began right away. The cat got into a barrel and began to yowl, and that attracted the attention of a bulldog, and he came along and danced about and barked and got terribly excited. It was a case of "dog in the light, cat in the shadow, dog full of Sght, cat growing madder." Pretty soon the dog upset the barrel, and went in after the cat. But it was a surprise paTty for him. The phosphorus glowed in the darkness, and he beheld a cat of fire. He came out of that barrel, and went off howling as though a policeman had stepped on him. Then the cat went .np 4 on fc the roofs, where oft or cats

do congregate, and tried to chum around 'em. But it was no go. They fled from him as if he were a bootjack. He didn't understand it, and gave chase ; and as there were about forty cats on those roofs, and as they •vrere ail scared and fled from him, howling dismally, ihe noise was something fearful, so that folks in ihe vicinity who heard it were scared and had cold sweats. The cats continued to tear about and yell so that it couldn't be endured. Mr Monkey and others got up, and went upon the roofs with clubs. And the first sight of a fiery cat frightened them, and one lady who saw it screamed and fell through a skylight and neaaly killed a man sleeping beneath it, and made him think Mother Shipton was rio-ht Finally, Mr Monkey and his friends made a desperate charge on the fiery cat, and tho poor cat took a flying leap to tho streets. lie hit on a policeman, savin°his own life, but nearly scaring the policeman out of his, as be thought he was struck by lightning. The cat jumped to the ground,°and an astronomer came along and took him for an aerolite, and tried to pick him up. To his amazement the aerolite ran. Then he was scared, too. Finally the cat got into a haymow, and somebody thought the barn was afire, and they called out the engines and got seven streams turned on him. He fought well, but they fixed him. And then investigations showed no fire, but only a dead cat. And they told the stableman he was a cross-eyed fool to mistake a cat's eyes for a fire, and so they left him. And all the West-end is talking of the mysterious fiery cat, and only young Monkey understands the mystery.