Felidae on the Road - Special U.S. Edition Read Online Free PDF

who've lost their crown jewels. With respect, however, the amputation of one's sexual organs is not to be compared with the extraction of a rotten tooth.
    So what was her nefarious plan? Just what cunning ruse did the witch have in mind to make Gustav imprison his beloved Francis in a basket and cart him off to the vet who, for a princely fee, would part him and his nuts for ever? The most unkindest cut of all, literally. Because so far my nuts had never bothered Gustav himself. Far from it: he rather liked to see me doing my bit out in the gardens to prevent the extinction of the species, probably as compensation for his own failure in the reproductive sphere. The answer was simple. Francesca had obviously been feeding the idiot that old line about the likes of me leaving liquid stink-bombs round the flat when in amorous mood. And since in fact there wasn't any stink, she must have suggested that there was something wrong with his sense of smell while extolling the unusual sensitivity of her own. The deduction was as logical as 1 + 1 = 2: off with his nuts!
    Reflecting on this gloomy prospect, I nodded off. A leaden slumber overcame me, and by the time I woke up night had fallen. I felt as if I'd only just escaped from a defective pressure chamber. At first I didn't think I could even move the tip of my tail, all my limbs were so numb. It was only with difficulty that I shook off my paralysis, got to my feet and arched my back more stiffly than ever before in my entire career. Meanwhile, a spring shower had begun outside. The patter of the rain was soothing. Then it all came back to me, and I took a panic-stricken look between my legs. It was so dark in the room that I couldn't spot my crown jewels straight away, and for a fraction of a second I thought I was going crazy. But then I felt their warmth, their weight, their whole regal splendour, and I pulled myself together again.
    The hands of the clock on the wall stood at twenty past three. That afternoon's terrible experiences had obviously put me out like a light, so that I hadn't heard the lovers coming home or even felt hungry for supper. Late as it was, however, I heard voices in the bedroom. With as little sound as a scarf dropped on the floor, I jumped off the sofa and approached the bedroom door. Then I stood outside and listened. It was not a quarrel going on in there, more the spooky kind of conference that takes place between victor and vanquished at the end of a war. They'd just reached an interesting section of the negotiations, apparently the last, dealing with the pros and cons of neutering domestic pets. The victorious power was going over the advantages of this 'therapeutic treatment' once more, not to convince the vanquished but because running through the positions stated before battle commenced is part of the political ritual. Gustav had to accept the outcome whether he liked it or not. She was pouring out all the confused tripe you'll find in every well-intentioned book about our species. First, it's all for our own good; you might think it was only as a side effect that the result left humans with a sparkling clean home and spared them hours of lustful nocturnal caterwauling and the distasteful business of drowning our unwanted progeny in the bath. Such duplicity almost made me throw up. Gustav, lying there in the dark like Billy Bunter on his deathbed, wearily uttered an occasional if and but like responses in a litany, whereupon Francesca the Snow Queen smothered his misgivings with a brand-new knock-out argument. Her visions went even further: far in the future she saw a wonderful New World in which my claws would be amputated so as to preserve the beautiful furniture they'd just ordered from suffering ugly scratch marks.( 3 ) Good heavens, what tortures were yet in store for me?
    I have to admit that I wouldn't have set out on my travels, or not that night anyway, if Gustav had had the decency to put up any kind of serious resistance - if he'd kept