Read The House Guests for Free Online Page A

and active. He will be responsive and retain some portion of the psychology of his kittenhood all his life. And, as this account will show, he will not be cowardly or lack a sense of adventure. The younger the cat the more minor the operation and the quicker the recovery. We took them in turn, waited, brought them home. They were cross and slightly baleful for about one day.
    Roger lost his tomhood before one of his secondary sex characteristics had time to develop. He never has acquired an adult cat voice. Except in combat, or just before he vomits, Roger has a kitten mew, an entirely futile device for getting doors opened or his dish filled. In the stress of war or nausea, he can make ululations rather like a drunken lyric soprano with the croup.
    Geoffrey achieved mature vocal chords. There is a curious sidelight to this difference in voice. As we have always followed the sun, there have always been screened doors. We have always arranged a window with cat shelves fastened to the outside of houses so the cats could come and go as they pleased. But sometimes their window would be closed. Roger soon learned to beat on the outside of the screen doors with his fists, making a racket like that off-stage thunder achieved by shaking a piece of sheet metal. For about the first six years of his life, Geoffrey took the traditional approach of sitting outside the doorand bellowing for it to be opened. Sometimes they would both be out there, one thumping and one shouting. I would judge each method equally effective.
    But quite suddenly Geoff switched to Roger’s system. He was six years old. He was in fine voice. It is impossible to guess what manner of reasoning was involved. Certainly he did not give up the use of his voice for other demands. In fact, he perfected it. During his last years, possibly through trial and error, he finally achieved the ultimate effectiveness in demanding food. I can define it only as an abrupt, abused, stentorian whine. Human nerve ends could take no more than thirty seconds of that. It could have been stupendously effective in getting doors opened. But he knocked on doors, as his brother did.
    There was one sound they made which was almost identical, Roger’s just slightly weaker and pitched a few notes higher. It is a distinctive and recognizable sound all cats use. It means, “Where are you?” It means, “Come and play.” Ah-
rowr
? Ah-
rowr
? Ah-
rowr
? The accent is on the second syllable, which ends on a rising inflection. There is a two- to three-second pause between each questioning call. If humans and cats are indeed part of the same pride, they will call humans and can be called by them with this portion of the standard vocabulary, though generally it is a cat-to-cat affair. They quickly become skeptical of people who go around making too many cat noises. So do I.
    While we were still on State Street and the cats were small, an acquaintance named Hank sat in the kitchen and deliberately broke the end of Roger’s tail about three or four vertebrae from the tip. I do not remember exactly what brief high-level conversation preceded it, something like, “You wanna see how youcan make a cat make a hell of a funny noise?” And before anyone could object he had reached and pinched the end of Roger’s tail. Roger made a sound ranging from the top limits of audibility right up into supersonic range and ran in place for several seconds until he got enough traction on the linoleum to scoot off into the other room. Hank chuckled merrily. We did not know he had broken the tail at that time. Apparently he got the tail between the thumb and the first two fingers, held the fingers a little apart, and pinched the tail into the open space.
    I am glad that we did not know. We let it be known quite forcefully that we saw nothing funny about hurting a cat. (Or about picking up beagle pups by their ears.) But Hank acted as if we were very odd people. I know he did not do it out of willful cruelty. The world