magistrate. He believed that no nation that had ever
known the joy of worshiping a royal family could
ever be robbed of it and not fade away and die of
melancholy. I urged that kings were dangerous. He
said, then have cats. He was sure that a royal family
of cats would answer every purpose. They would be
as useful as any other royal family, they would know
as much, they would have the same virtues and the
same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shin-
dies with other royal cats, they would be laughably
vain and absurd and never know it, they would be
wholly inexpensive; finally, they would have as sound
a divine right as any other royal house, and "Tom
VII., or Tom XI., or Tom XIV. by the grace of God
King," would sound as well as it would when applied