] [opp p17]He landed there on his four padded feet light as a feather. [ opp p17 ] ‘He’s a dear, good, affectionate boy,’ said mother. ‘It’s only his high spirits. Don’t you think, darling, perhaps you were a little hard on him?’ ‘It was for his own good,’ said father. ‘Of course,’ said mother; ‘but I can’t bear to think of him at that dreadful school.’ ‘Well——,’ father was beginning, when Jane came in with the tea-things on a clattering tray, whose sound made Maurice tremble in every leg. Father and mother began to talk about the weather. ‘Well——,’ Maurice felt very affectionately to both his parents. The natural way of showing this was to jump on to the sideboard and thence on to his father’s shoulders. He landed there on his four padded feet, light as a feather, but father was not pleased. ‘Bother the cat!’ he cried. ‘Jane, put it out of the room.’ Maurice was put out. His great idea, which was to be carried out with milk, would certainly not be carried out in the dining-room. He sought the kitchen, and, seeing a milk-can on the window-ledge, jumped up beside the can and patted it as he had seen Lord Hugh do. [p18]‘My!’ said a friend of Jane’s who happened to be there, ‘ain’t that cat clever—a perfect moral, I call her.’ [p 18 ] ‘He’s nothing to boast of this time,’ said cook. ‘I will say for Lord Hugh he’s not often taken in with a empty can.’
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