IT WAS THE CAT., Narrow Escape of the Aged Emperor of Germany.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 211, 16 July 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

IT WAS THE CAT., Narrow Escape of the Aged Emperor of Germany.

A Berlin correspondent, wiiting on May 21st, says : " A wandering cat nearly did last week what all the French generals failed to do in a whole campaign. The stray pussy was within an ace of doing up old Emperor William of (Germany. The Kaiser generally regales himself in front of hio bedroom before turning in on a supper of fried fish. With his usual keenness for economising time, the old man eats his supper seated on a patent steaming apparatus which has been ordered by his physicians. A small boiler is placed on the fire and from this an india-rubber tube conveys steam to a chamber under the patient's chair. While the Emperor was eating his supper and enjoying the heat of his steam engine, a puff of smoke and soot came down tho chimney and made him start .so violently that the tubs was disconnected and the boiling water poured out in volumes all over the place. His luck never deserted him, however, and ho escaped without scald, to find eventually that the pull' of smoke was caused by a cat, which, attracted by tho smell of his fried fish, had rashly attempted the descent of the chimney andhad got stuck in tho flue."