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LORDS OF THE HOUSETOPS THIRTEEN CAT TALES
INTERPRETERS IN THE GARRET THE MUSIC OF SPAIN THE MERRY-GO-ROUND MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE LORDS OF THE HOUSETOPS MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR
_C'est l'esprit familier du lieu; Il juge, il préside, il inspire Toutes choses dans son empire; Peut-être est-il fée, est-il dieu._
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
_These stories I have collected to amuse Avery Hopwood_
Thanks are due to the following authors and publishers for permission to use the stories contained in this book:
Harper and Brothers and Mrs. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman for _The Cat_, from _Understudies_ (copyright 1901 by Harper and Brothers).
Houghton Mifflin Co., for _Zut_, from _Zut and Other Parisians_ (copyright 1903 by Guy Wetmore Carryl).
E. P. Dutton and Co., for _A Psychical Invasion_, from _John Silence_.
Doubleday, Page and Co., and Booth Tarkington for Gipsy, from _Penrod and Sam_ (copyright 1916 by Doubleday, Page and Co.).
Harper and Brothers and the Mark Twain Estate for _Dick Baker's Cat_, from _Roughing It_ (copyright 1871-1899 by the American Publishing Co.; copyright 1899 by Samuel L. Clemens; copyright 1913 by Clara Gabrilowitsch).
Harper and Brothers for _Madame Jolicoeur's Cat_, from _From the South of France_ (copyright 1912 by Harper and Brothers).
George H. Doran Co., for _A Friendly Rat_, from _The Book of a Naturalist_ (copyright 1919 by the George H. Doran Co.).
The Four Seas Co., and Peggy Bacon for _The Queen's Cat_, from _The True Philosopher_ (copyright 1919 by the Four Seas Co.).
Houghton Mifflin Co., for _Calvin_, from _My Summer in a Garden_ (copyright 1870 by Fields, Osgood and Co.; copyright 1898 by Charles Dudley Warner; copyright 1912 by Susan Lee Warner).
In the essay and especially in poetry the cat has become a favourite subject, but in fiction it must be admitted that he lags considerably behind the dog. The reasons for this apparently arbitrary preference on the part of authors are perfectly easy to explain. The instinctive acts of the dog, who is a company-loving brute, are very human; his psychology on occasion is almost human. He often behaves as a man would behave. It is therefore a comparatively simple matter to insert a dog into a story about men, for he can often carry it along after the fashion of a human character.