more frequently occupied by cats than by the august author of "Les Misérables." If he were well inclined to throne himself, so indeed were they; and the superior nature of their claims was readily granted by the man in whom their empire kept alive the saving grace of modesty. "When I was young," says M. Champfleury, "I had the honour of being received by Victor Hugo in a room with a big red dais, on which reposed a cat who seemed to await the homage of visitors. He had a huge ruff of white fur like a Chancellor's tippet, his whiskers resembled those of a Hungarian Magyar, and when he advanced in a stately manner, his brilliant eyes fixed full upon my face, I perceived that he had modelled himself on the poet, and was reflecting the majestic thoughts that seemed to fill the chamber."
Did the cat model himself on the poet, or the poet on the cat? When "each seemed either," it was a difficult matter to decide.
About the time that Victor Hugo was gathering his first rich crop of laurels, a certain M. Raton—unknown to fame—published in Paris a very serious little treatise, "Sur l'Education du Chat Domestique," preceded by "Son Histoire Philosophique et Politique," and followed by an elaborate "Traitement de ses Maladies." It is a book of amazing dulness. M. Raton did not love cats. How could
