Mike Flannery | Page 6

full opinion she sent to Hibbert & Jones by the next mail.
The next morning Flannery was feeling fine. He whistled as he went to the nine--twenty train, and whistled as he came back to the office with his hand-truck full of packages and the large express envelope with the red seals on the back snugly tucked in his inside pocket, but when he opened the envelope and read the first paper that fell out he stopped whistling.
"Agent, Westcote," said the letter. "Regarding W.B. 23645, Hibbert & Jones, consignor of the cat you are holding in storage, advises us that the consignee claims cat you have is not the cat shipped by consignor. Return cat by first train to this office. If the cat is not strong enough to travel alone have veterinary accompany it. Yrs. truly, Interurban Express Company, per J."
At first a grin spread over the face of Flannery. "'Not sthrong enough t' travel alone'!" he said with a chuckle. "If iver there was a sthrong cat 'tis that wan be this time, an' 't w'u'd be a waste av ixpinse t' hire a----" Suddenly his face sobered.
He glanced out of the back door at the square mile of hummocky sand and clay.
"'Return cat be firrst trrain t' this office,'" he repeated blankly. He left his seat and went to the door and looked out. "Return th' cat," he said, and stepped out upon the edge of the soft, new soil. It was all alike in its recently dug appearance. "Th' cat, return it," he repeated, taking steps this way and that way, with his eyes on the clay at his feet. He walked here and there, but one place looked like the others. There was room for ten thousand cats, and one cat might have been buried in any one of ten thousand places. Flannery sighed. Orders were orders, and he went back to the office and locked the doors. He borrowed a coal-scoop from the grocer next door and went out and began to dig up the clay and sand. He dug steadily and grimly. Never, perhaps, in the history of the world had a man worked so hard to dig up a dead cat. Even in ancient Egypt, where the cat was a sacred animal, they did not dig them up when they had them planted. Quite the contrary: it was a crime to dig them up; and Flannery, as he dug, had a feeling that it would be almost a crime to dig up this one. Never, perhaps, did a man dig so hard to find a thing he really did not care to have.
Flannery dug all that morning. At lunch-time he stopped digging--and went without his lunch--long enough to deliver the packages that had come on the early train. As he passed the station he saw a crowd of boys playing hockey with an old tomato-can, and he stopped. When he reached the office he was followed by sixteen boys. Some of them had spades, some of them had small fire-shovels, some had only pointed sticks, but all were ready to dig. He showed them where he had already dug.
"Twinty-five cints apiece, annyhow," he said, "an' five dollars fer th' lucky wan that finds it."
"All right," said one. "Now what is it we are to dig for?"
"'Tis a cat," said Flannery, "a dead wan."
"Go on!" cried the boy sarcastically. "What is it we are to dig for?"
"I can get you a dead cat, mister," said another. "Our cat died."
"'T will not do," said Flannery. "'T is a special cat I'm wantin'. 'T is a long-haired cat, an' 't was dead a long time. Ye can't mistake it whin ye come awn to it. If ye dig up a cat ye know no wan w'u'd want t' have, that 's it."
The sixteen boys dug, and Flannery, in desperation, dug, but a square mile is a large plot of ground to dig over. No one, having observed that cat on the morning when Timmy planted it, would have believed it could be put in any place where it could not be instantly found again. It had seemed like a cat that would advertise itself. But that is just like a cat; it is always around when it is n't needed, and when it is needed it can't be found. Before the afternoon was half over the boys had tired of digging for a dead cat and had gone away, but Flannery kept at it until the sun went down. Then he looked to see how much of the plot was left to dig up. It was nearly all left. As he washed his hands before going to his boarding-house a messenger-boy handed him a telegram. Flannery tore it open with misgivings.
"Cat has not arrived. Must come