A PHOSPHORESCENT CAT.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4383, 20 January 1883, Page 4

A PHOSPHORESCENT CAT.

They had a bilin' old time at the West End recently. Mr Monkey's boy took the family cat and rubbed phosphorous all over him. It was about nightfall when he completed the job and let the cat go. The hoo-doo began right away. The cat went into a barrel and began to yowl, and that attracted the attention of the 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 shadder ; dog full of fight, sat growing madder." Pretty soon the dog upset the barrel and went in-after the cat. But it was a surprise for him. The phosphorus glowed in the darkness and he be. held a cat of fire. He came out of the barrel and went off howling, as though a policeman had stepped on him. Then the cat went up on the roofs, where other cats, do congregate, and tried to chum round with them. 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 40 cats on those roofs, and as they were all scared, and fled from him. howling dismally, the noise was something fearful, so that folks in the vicinity who heard it were scared and had cold' sweats. The ca<s continued to tear about and yell so that it couldn't be endured. Mr Monkey and others got up and went upon the roof 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 nearly killed a man sleeping beneath it, and made him think Mother Shipton was right. Finally, Mr Monkey and his friends made a desperate charge on the fiery cat, and the poor cat took a flying leap into the street. He hit a policeman, saving his own life, but nearly scaring Jthe officer out of his senses, as he thought he was struck by lightning. The cat jumped to the ground, and an astronomer came along took him for an aerolite, and tried to pick him up. To his amazement the eerolite ran. Then he was scared tool Finally, the cat got into a hay-mow, and someone thought the barn was afire, and they called out the engines and got seven streams on him. He fdUght well, but they fixed him. And then investigations showed no fire but a dead oat. And they told the stableman he was a crosseyed fool to mis take 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.