Australian Tales - Setis

his wife and his attic lodger, until the welcome arrival of the policeman,
and the still more welcome smiles and embraces of his precious little
pigeon, had restored gladness into his looks, notwithstanding his wounds
and bruises.
That was all Mr. Lemonpip could tell them about his mishaps. In
making a search, however, in order further to elucidate the mystery, they
discovered Mrs. Lemonpip's favourite old tom cat, lying on the dogskin
mat, pressed as flat as a volume of acts of parliament. He was quite dead,
of course, but his mouth was wide open, as if he had died in the act of
making that awful noise, which had so terrified Mrs. Lemonpip and her
lodger too, and which she afterwards regarded as the friendly outcry of
the animal against that dangerous rival in his mistress's house, and in her
heart too; as if he with his last outtrodden breath had exalted his voice to
a supernatural pitch, to warn her of the diabolical character of that other
“old tom” in the black bottle; her overweening fondness for which, had
caused the untimely death of one of the best rat-catching cats in the
colony; it being quite clear that it was the mischief-making gin which
had incited her to send her husband down stairs on that disastrous
occasion.
It did not fail to strike Mrs. Lemonpip as a remarkable coincidence,
that at the very time her poor old tom cat was giving his last kick at the
bottom of the house, beside her prostrate spouse, she was sitting on the
top of the house in solitary sorrow, resolving upon the total abandonment
of the old tom in the cupboard, or in figuratively crunching him beneath
her heel. Although she could not but lament the painful end of her
faithful old cat, she was ever afterwards consoled when looking at his
stuffed skin in the glass case on the side board, that tom's dying cries had
been instrumental in arousing her to a sense of her danger of becoming a
downright drunkard, and had led to her totally forsaking the pernicious
and expensive habit of tippling, or taking a “little drop of comfort” every
hour of the day — a habit which had long since sapped the foundations
of all her domestic comfort, had chilled the natural warmth of her heart's
affections, and made her a misery to herself; a dreaded nuisance to her
friends — and, what is infinitely worse than all, had destroyed her hope
of the life to come.
The inspector soon comprehended the whole affair, and smilingly
withdrew with his men to explain as much as was expedient to the
excited populace outside, in order to induce them to disperse. He then
went to the watch house and liberated Mr. McSkilly, and although it was
some time before that honest Scot would accept of his “free pardon,” and
talked loudly of bringing actions for damages against Dr. O'Flaherty,
Monsieur Blowitt, and the whole police corps; after a while, his good
nature prevailed over his litigious disposition, and he laughed heartily at
the seriocomical events, then shook hands with the inspector, said “gude