ONE:"There are the funniest cats in this country that you ever saw. They have the shortest kind of tails, and a good many of them haven't any tails at all any more than a rabbit. You know we expect every kitten in America to play with her tail, and what can she do when she has no tail to play with? I think that must be the reason why the Japanese cats are so solemn, and why they won't play as our cats do. I have tried to find out how it all happens, but nobody can tell. Doctor Bronson says the kittens are born without tails, and that is all he knows about it. I think they must be a different kind of cat from ours; but, apart from the absence of tails, they don't look any way dissimilar. Somebody says that an American once took one of these tailless cats to San Francisco as a curiosity, and that it would never make friends with any long-tailed cat. It would spit and scratch, and try to bite off the other cat's tail; but one day, when they put it with a cat whose tail had been cut off by a bad boy, it was friendly at once."
FORE:The party remained three days at Canton. They rose early every morning, and went on excursions through and around the city, and it is fair to say that they did not have a single idle moment. Each of the boys made careful notes of what he saw and heard, and by the end of their stay both had enough to fill a small volume. They returned to Hong-kong on the fourth day, and on the morning after their return they sat down to write the story of their adventures. But before they began writing the projected letter a discussion arose between them, which was about like this:
FORE:COOKING-RANGE ON A PULLMAN CAR. COOKING-RANGE ON A PULLMAN CAR.
