She was puzzled and irritated beyond measure, and kept
looking in the same place again and again, just as we do when we
have mislaid something. She was rapidly losing temper and dignity
when suddenly we saw the fly reappear from under the cat's stomach
and make for the window-pane, at the very moment when the cat
herself was exclaiming for the fiftieth time that she wondered where
that stupid fly ever could have got to. No man who has been hunting
twenty minutes for his spectacles could be more delighted when he
suddenly finds them on his own forehead. "So that's where you
were," we seemed to hear her say, as she proceeded to catch it, and
again began rolling it very softly without hurting it, under her
paw.
My friend and I both noticed that the cat, in spite of her
perplexity, never so much as hinted that we were the culprits. The
question whether anything outside the window could do her good or
harm had long since been settled by her in the negative, and she was
not going to reopen it; she simply cut us dead, and though her
annoyance was so great that she was manifestly ready to lay the
blame on anybody or anything with or without reason, and though she
must have perfectly well known that we were watching the whole
affair with amusement, she never either asked us if we had happened
to see such a thing as a fly go down our way lately, or accused us
of having taken it from her--both of which ideas she would, I am
confident, have been very well able to convey to us if she had been
so minded.
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