A Night Out

"Oh, please, Mr. Bo!" wailed Lizzie, wringing her paws as she perched upon the roof. "Do hurry while youse has got de chanst! He'll rip you somethin' terrible! For my sake, dearie, won't you slope?"

"No, not upon your life!" called Omar Ben gravely. "I will not demean myself by retreating from any cat alive."

This statement was fat with brave audacity, but lean in the matter of discretion; so Pete leaned down with one last friendly whisper of appeal:

"W'y, you chowder-headed ass, he'll make yer look like a moth-et flannel shirt! Beat it!"

The patrician declined to "beat it," and Ash-Can Sam edged a little closer, wearing a dissolute, wicked leer of joy. He circled slowly round the stranger cat, eying