And at this moment we have undergone a new adoption, for a milk white jackdaw without a tail flew into the garden yesterday, and the household was scattered, uttering endearments, among the cabbages, and scraps of raw meat adorned the lawn. Towards evening he was persuaded to enter the kitchen. Matilda was asked to lend her cage for a time, but when she saw a new centre of attraction she burst into screams so terrific that every one who was not already occupied in housing the jackdaw ran into the kitchen to see who was being murdered. So they provided temporary accommodation for Jack under a basket chair.
He liked it so well that this evening he was found sitting on the chair waiting for some friendly mortal to bestow him inside.
“_Reposeful, patient, undemonstrative, Luxurious, enigmatically sage, Dispassionately cruel._”
Ra had three periods of development. In the first, he showed himself cowardly and colourless; in the second, he sowed his wild oats with a mild and sparing paw; and in the third period it was borne in on us that whatever qualities of heart and head he displayed were but superficial manifestations, while the inner being of Ra, the why and wherefore of his actions, must for ever remain shrouded in mystery.
We might have guessed this, had we been wise enough, from his appearance. His very colour was uncertain. His mistress could see that he was blue--a very dark, handsome blue Persian. Those who knew less than she did about cats called him black. One, as rash as she was ignorant, said he was brown; but as there are no brown cats Ra could not have been brown. Finally, a so-called friend named him “The Incredible Blue.”
When the Incredible Blue sat at a little distance two large green eyes were all that could be discerned of his features. The blue hair was so extremely dark that it could be hardly distinguished from his black nose and mouth. This gave him an inexpressibly serious appearance.
The solemnity of his aspect was well borne out by the stolidity of his behaviour. There is little to record during his youth except an unrequited attachment to a fox-terrier. In earlier days Ra’s grandmother had been devoted to the same dog--a devotion as little desired and as entirely unreciprocated.