trust of innocent little creatures. To which Charles sent the innocent little creatures to hell - the damned creature, with its eternal surveillance, brought him to the point that, leaving the house, he expected to feel the heavy hand of the inspector from Scotland Yard on his shoulder.

But it was interesting nonetheless. And the cuckoo, and the robin, which flew in to sit on the back of a chair while we ate; and a woodpecker who went a little crazy and began to hollow out a hole in a telegraph pole in the dead of winter - we watched him as if fascinated until someone reported him to the post office, from where a fitter came and walled up the hole with a metal plate. We already felt like great ornithologists, And then we got cats.

After that, prudent birds began to fly around our cottage far away. And if they had to cross our territory, they soared vertically up at the gate and swept over it at maximum height. The Jackdaws held out for a while, but they too gave up when one day Sheba climbed up the chimney and looked down at them meaningfully. The only bird that visited the cottage was a thrush that played with Solomon - but even he disappeared as soon as Sheba peeked around the corner. Or rather, one thrush played, as is customary with birds - flying over the very head of Solly, when he walked across the lawn, emitting mocking cries, and perched seductively on the fence. And Solly didn't play - he rushed at the thrush, like a Wimbledon champion, spectacularly jumping, spreading his paws in all four directions.

It was then that the thrush made a fatal mistake. He no doubt watched Solomon hunt mice in the lawn, and considered him a rogue who unable to catch anything. He hadn't seen Solomon practicing at home with ping-pong balls and flies. Watching Solomon with the ball was pure pleasure, Sheba, as Charles arrogantly pointed out, caught what was thrown to her, purely in a feminine way. When мы подбрасывали для нее мячик, она прыгала, не прицелившись, болтала лапами в воздухе и промахивалась. It was amazing, considering how cleverly she hunted mice - no less amazing than the ability of Solomon, who missed everything on the ground, to fly into the air like an arrow, and even in flight to grab with his front paws what we threw him.

This was his only talent, and he used it at every opportunity and inconvenience. If we didn't throw balls or tinfoil balls to him, he would start swatting flies. It can't be said that it's so pleasant when a cat now and then rushes through the air like an aerialist and immediately slams on the floor like a bomb, but we got rid of the flies. Solomon's talent, although the thrush knew nothing about it, made him a dangerous object for the ridicule of small birds. And then one day, after a good workout with a blowfly, Solomon came out, jumped rapidly and pulled out a couple of feathers from the tail of a winged wit.

We knew that the thrush survived. We saw it with our own eyes as it raced over the valley like it was being chased by ghosts. But Solomon did not admit any such thing. For the rest of the evening, he walked with a boastful gait that we know well, which Charles called the step of a belly panther - his head is lowered, two black feathers stick out from the corners of his mouth, and a look that notifies, like a bird, if we are interested in knowing where it has gone, is inside him..

When Соломон лег спать в эту ночь и в лесу начали перекликаться совы, он встал и охотничьей походкой подошел к окну. When-то, когда он был котенком, едва совы принимались ухать, он мгновенно забирался под одеяло, но те времена безвозвратно миновали. With his muzzle pressed against the glass, his camel's rear up threateningly, he explained to them in detail what he would do to them if they did not shut up. He will eat, and attach the feathers of their tails to the tail of a thrush.

Very often in the following days I was reminded of Aunt Ethel's prediction that Solomon would grow up crazy, and watching him jump on everything that flies over the garden, from an airplane to a sparrow, I wondered who would fall into the straitjacket first: me or him.

Now he only crawled out of the house - in case the prey was around the corner. In the garden, he patrolled with the crouching gait of a hunter, squinting as hard as he could and casting reproachful glances at the garden equipment shed, where Sheba, he resented, was talking too loudly to Sidney and scaring away all the birds. When он спал перед камином, подставляя живот огню, то уже не безмятежным сном того, кого ничто не волнует, кроме бутербродов с крабьим мясом, а продолжал и во сне так энергично ловить птиц, что казалось, у него разыгралась пляска святого Витта.

But he caught only these birds. In reality, the real ones did not approach him within a jump distance. To compensate, if there was a dead bird anywhere within a mile radius, Solomon immediately dragged it home.

Sometimes it turned out to be old dead, for example, the crow, which, apparently, was shot a month before Solomon solemnly laid it on the carpet, and it literally fell to pieces. We raked the remains into a scoop and hurriedly carried them into the forest. “We can’t leave them with us,” Charles said, “only it’s not enough for someone to imagine that Solomon killed the crow.” Frankly, I found Charles overly cautious: even the most ardent admirers of Solomon would not believe that he was capable of shooting a crow with a shotgun. But I kept silent. Yes, my words would have changed little.

The next day the crow returned to the carpet.

Thanks to Rare Luck, said Solomon, carefully placing her in her original place, he went in the forest by an unusual path and saw her under the fallen leaves. Sweetheart, right? He carefully licked his disheveled feathers and lay down jealously beside her. And almost to the point! He intends to Keep Her Forever and Forever, he added, and looked around to see if Charles was listening. However, Charles, plugging his nose, had already run off to look for something disinfectant.

After that, Charles took my advice: Solomon's trophies were immediately sent to the trash can, and the lid was closed tighter so that he could not open it. And he tried. He was panting, desperately scratching at the lid and loudly demanding that he get back the head of a chicken he had found in Old Man Adams' garbage heap and the wing of a pigeon he had picked up on the road.

“If the crow,” Charles said, “was dead for a month, then the dove died in the days when the Romans occupied Britain.” But the smell of Solomon did not depress - the stronger his find stank, the uglier it looked, the happier he was. That is, provided that he stumbled upon it. If we gave him something not the freshest - for example, for dinner, meat bought the day before - he looked at us with horror and said, do we really think that he will eat THIS. And Sheba was not far behind him. Want to Poison Us, she cried, backing theatrically, as if not believing her nose. Then they retired, sat dejectedly side by side on the garden fence, and in thin voices asked passers-by if they could find a stale crust, or perhaps they knew a good house where they would take two little cats that no one likes.

The worst was the end of the week. On Sunday evening, I often simply did not know how to feed these animals. I will buy two or three pounds of fresh meat on Friday, and on Saturday afternoon, if it was hot, they would turn their noses away from it. The fish dropped out for the same reason. They did not eat it on Saturday even for breakfast. At the sight of canned cat food, their ears perked up in horror. Siamese cats do not eat this at all! Even in critical cases. The best canned beef or veal they agreed to eat, but only one serving. And also - in any case! "Siamese cats," they said as they walked sadly towards the fence in a stately procession, "need Diversity!"

Week after week, Sheba didn't eat anything on Sundays, and she looked so ethereal it brought tears to my eyes, even though I knew full well she was breaking down. And Solomon defiantly existed only on wheat flakes. Our hearts sank every time we saw the buffet door open and a starvation bag with a gaping hole in the side—mute accusations that we weren't Feeding Them The Right Way. We longingly recalled Blondin, who was enough for complete happiness to have a couple of nuts and an orange slice ... and his only vice was a passion for trouser buttons and even a tendency to stick his tongue into the spout of a teapot for tea leaves if no one was looking in his direction ... Sighing about the past, we went and ordered a refrigerator.

In that day, когда он был доставлен — белый сверкающий символ их победы в борьбе за свежую пищу для сиамских кошек, — Соломон (иногда казалось, что у этого кота запас подлых штучек просто неистощим) приволок в дом свою самую