A change came over Jennie. Her lithe body lost the sick, slack, slumped crouch and pulled itself together again. As q usual, when she was much moved, she sat up and gave her back a few licks. Then she said, `If you really think you need me, Peter …'
`Oh, but, Jennie, I do …'
`Then I'll go with you, whenever you say.'
Peter jumped up and looked out the window. Off in the distance, down by the goods wagons on the siding, he could see a group of people approaching, the foreman, the two dockers, a man carrying a black bag, and several others.
'I think we'd better go now,' he said, `before they come back.'
Without another word, Jennie arose and they slipped out of the door, but it was significant that this time it was Peter who led the way and Jennie who followed him. They quickly slipped around behind the shack, and then alternately running and walking down the water side of the docks and sheds, soon reached the iron gates of the pier which now stood open, and went through them out into the street again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: London Once More
IT was only half true that Peter wanted to go home. For boy and cat were becoming so intermingled that Peter was not at all certain any longer which he really was.
More than once during his voyage aboard the Countess of Greenock and the subsequent adventures, Peter had thought of his mother and father and Scotch Nanny and wondered how they were, if they were missing him and whether they had any explanation for his mysterious disappearance. For certainly, none of them, not even Nanny, who had been right there at the time, could be expected to guess that he had changed suddenly from a boy into a snow-white tomcat under her very eyes almost, and had been pitched out into the street by her as a stray.
He thought it was probable that they would have notified the police, or perhaps, believing that he had run away, placed an advertisement in the `Personal' columns of The Times saying: `Peter: Come home, all is forgiven-Mummy, Daddy and Nanny,' or possibly it might have been more formally worded: `Will anyone who can give information as to the whereabouts of Master Peter Brown, vanished from No. IA Cavendish Mews, London, W.C.2, kindly communicate with Colonel and Mrs. Alastair Brown of that address. Reward!'
But in the main, when he thought of those at home he did not believe that he was much missed except by Nanny who, of course, had been busy with him almost from morning until night, leaving out the hours when he was at school, and now that he was gone would have nothing to do. His father was away from home so much of the time that except for their occasional evening romps he could hardly be expected to notice the difference. And as for his mother-Peter always felt sad and heavy-hearted when he thought about his mother, because she had been so beautiful and he had loved her so much. But it was the kind of sadness that is connected with a memory of something long ago that was. Looking back to what life had been like in those now but dimly recollected days, he felt certain that his mother had been a little unhappy herself at first when he was missed, but then, after all, she never seemed to have much time and now that he was gone perhaps it would not have taken her long to get used to it.
Really it was Jennie who had come more and more to mean family to him and upon whom he leaned for advice, help, companionship, trust, and even affection. It was true, she talked a great deal and was not the most beautiful cat in the world, but there was an endearing and ingratiating warmth and grace about her that made Peter feel comfortable and happy when they slept coiled up close to one another, or when even he only looked at her sometimes and saw her sweet attitudes, kindly eyes, gamin-wise face and soft white throat.
The world was full of all kinds of beautiful cats, prize specimens whose pictures he had seen in the illustrated magazines during the times of the cat shows. Compared to them, Jennie was rather plain, but it was an appealing plainness he would not have exchanged for all the beauty in the world.
Nor was it his newly acquired cat-self that was seeking a return to Cavendish Mews in quest of a home, though to some extent the cat in him was now prey to curiosity as to how things were there without him and what everyone was doing. But he knew quite definitely that his mother and father were people who had little or no interest in animals, or appeared to have any need of them, and hence would be hardly likely to offer a haven to a pair of stray cats come wandering in off the streets, namely Jennie and himself.
Peter's suggestion that Jennie accompany him on a trip home to Cavendish Mews was perhaps more than anything born out of the memory that when he had been unhappy and upset about their treatment of Mr. Grims at the time of the first encounter with him, she had managed to interest and distract him by proposing the journey to Scotland. When he saw her sunk in the depths of grief, and guilt over the fate of the poor old man, Peter had plucked a leaf out of her book on experience in the hope that it would take her mind off the tragedy, and particularly what she considered her share in it. By instinct, he seemed to have known that nothing actually would have moved her from the spot but his expression of his need for her.
Whatever, it was clear after they had set out for Cavendish Mews that she was in a more cheerful frame of mind and anxious to help him achieve his objective.
It is not easy for cats to move about in a big city, particularly on long journeys, and Jennie could be of no assistance to Peter in finding his way back to Cavendish Mews, since she had never lived or even been there and hence could not use her homing instinct, a kind of automatic direction-finder which communicated itself through her sensitive whiskers and enabled her to travel unerringly to any place where she had once spent some time.
Peter at least had the unique, from a cat's point of view, ability to know what people around him were saying, as well as being able to read signs, such as for instance appeared on the front of omnibuses and in general terms announced where they were going. One then had but to keep going in that direction and eventually one would arrive at the same destination or vicinity. In his first panic at finding himself a cat and out in the street, Peter had fled far from his home with never any account taken of the twistings and turnings he had made. However, he was quite familiar with his own neighbourhood, and knew if he could once reach Oxford and Regent streets he would find his way.
However, when it came to the lore of the city and how to preserve one's skin whole, eat, drink and sleep, Jennie as usual proved invaluable.
En route he learned from her all the important things there were to know about dogs and how to handle them, and that for instance he must beware of terriers of every kind, that the average street mongrel was to be despised. Dogs on leashes could be ignored even though they put up a terrific fuss and roared, threatened, growled and strained. They only did it because they were on the leash, which of course injured their dignity, and they had to put up a big show as to what they would do if they were free. They behaved exactly the same when sighting another dog, and the whole thing, according to Jennie, was nothing but a lot of bluff, and she for one never paid the slightest attention to them.
`Never run from a dog if you can control it,' she admonished Peter, `because most of them are half blind, anyway, inclined to be hysterical, and will chase anything that moves. But if you don't run, and stand your ground, chances are he will go right by you and pretend he neither sees you nor smells you, particularly if he has tangled with one of us before. Dogs have long memories.
`Small dogs you can keep in their places by swatting them the way we do when we play-box, only you run your claws out and hit fast and hard, because most of them are scared of having their eyes scratched and they don't like their noses clawed either, because they are tender. Here, for instance is one looking for trouble, and I'll show you what I mean.'
They were walking, through Settle Street, near Whitechapel, looking for a meal, when a fat, overfed Scottie ran barking from a doorway and made a good deal of attacking them, barking, yelping, leaping and charging in short rushes with an amount of snapping of its teeth, bullying and bravado.
Jennie calmly squatted down on the pavement, facing the foe with a kind of humiliating disinterest which he mistook for fear and abject cringing, and which gave him sufficient courage to close in within reach and risk a real bite with his teeth at Jennie's flank. Like lightning flashes her left paw shot out three times, while she leaned away from the attack just enough to let the Scottie miss her. The next moment, cut on the end of the nose and just
