крупную добычу. Even the greatest actor couldn't take the stage more effective. The technicians are on their knees in the kitchen fiddling with wiring, I prepare to offer them a friendly cup of tea, Sheba, wide-eyed inquisitively, sits in the foreground as usual, and one of the technicians jokingly asks if there is enough room in the refrigerator for her mice, Charles calculateshow many bottles of beer can be kept there, - and then Solomon suddenly appears. His eyes shine like stars above a cloud of feathers, his long thin legs are spread out to avoid stepping on dragging wings, and he staggers under the weight of a huge pheasant.

When он сложил птицу к моим ногам, воцарилась мертвая тишина. The technicians looked at each other under the visors of their caps. We knew full well what they were thinking—that we indulge in poaching at our leisure and have cleverly adapted Siamese cats instead of dogs for this, and the sooner they get away from such a dubious company, the better. Charles tried to correct the situation: he told about Solomon's manner of dragging any dead stuff home from the forest. “Ha-ha,” he said, “like that crow that fell to pieces, barely touched it,” and casually kicked the pheasant. Only the pheasant did not fall apart, but rolled over with a delicious slap, and Solomon jumped on him, with a devilish howl urging him to get up again if he dared. Frightened to death, the technicians hurried to finish the work and fled. They didn't speak to us again, but as their van rolled down the road, we heard a muffled voice saying, "I see why they needed the refrigerator."

One thing we knew for sure: wherever Solomon picked up a pheasant, he would not catch it. It’s one thing to have feathers from the tail of a thrush, but such a bird would just have to flap its wings, and it would instantly find itself in the nearest tree, loudly demanding to call a fire engine.

He could steal a bird from someone's pantry. Or maybe one of the foresters threw it over the fence as a gift to us, as shy people do in the village, and Solomon picked it up and carried it into the house.

We still don't know the answer to this riddle. For two days the pheasant lay hidden under the bath, and Solomon did not stop trying to break the door, and Charles either said, was the bird really in vain, or reminded that in the old days people were sent to Botany Bay for less for hard labor. We still hoped that someone would shed light on this mystery, but no one did. If he got to us from someone's pantry, then, as Charles pointed out, he also ended up there illegally. We did not dare to make inquiries for fear of exposing Solomon as a poacher if the pheasant was not presented to us. Since from the moment of birth, Solomon spent all his waking time inspiring people what a dashing fellow he was, after all, they could believe him.

Therefore, on the second night, having come to the final conclusion that, apart from considerations of decency, it is hardly worth eating a pheasant, which (the third hypothesis) could well die from poison, when it was completely dark, we made our way with a bird in a bag behind the gate, walked two miles into hills and regretfully buried her in a ditch.

Chapter fifteen
ROMAN OF SOLOMON
How nice it is when two Siamese cats live in the house, people said, seeing them heading in a solemn procession to the garden, threatening disaster with cabbage seedlings, which Charles had just planted in the garden, or sitting decorously in an armchair, gently clinging to each other, as if on a Christmas card.

In some ways, it was really nice. When нас не было дома, они составляли компанию друг другу, и куда бы Соломон, как он сам говорил, мог бы положить голову, засыпая у камина в зимний вечер, если бы к его услугам не было живота Шебы?

On the other hand, the endless pranks into which they dragged each other would have been beyond the reach of a whole flock of monkeys. For example, the case when Sheba hid in the sidecar of Sydney's motorcycle, and he, finding her only when he got home, was forced to immediately take her back - would she have thought of this on her own? Sheba was a homebody. She seldom left the confines of the garden, and whenever Solomon went for another walk, she would, much to his disgust, be on the porch as he stalked his way up the path on his way back, yelling wickedly that there he was, there he was, and shall we spank him?

He could boast as much as he wanted about where he was and what feats he had accomplished - Sheba was not interested in this. She preferred to stay at home, being Charles and Sydney's girlfriend. And so it went on, until one day she heard the cries of Solomon: “Come and see where I am sitting!” And when she went to look, she saw him on the hood of a parked car. Sheba looked at him, began to call Charles - and changed her mind. She's been a good girl for so long that life to tell the truth, it has become quite bland. In addition, contrary to her insistent advice, he was never spanked, but on the contrary, when he returned, they danced around him so much that all her stiffness was indignant ... And without further thought, she joined Solomon on the hood.

From then on, as soon as someone parked a car on the road near the cottage, they rushed there like lightning.

At first, it was enough for them to just sit there and chat with passers-by as much as they could. It was already bad: I was exhausted, rushing to drive them off the hood and erase their paw prints before the owner returned. But then Solomon made a great discovery: the machine had an inside! I remember very well the day he discovered it. I rushed, dragged them off the hood of a big black Humber and, diligently polishing the hood, suddenly noticed that Solomon was peering at something through the windshield with disbelieving eyes.! I grinned idiotically at her (nothing better came to my mind), I grabbed the cats and took to their heels. I might as well not work. Solomon, having spotted the old woman, by all means wanted to examine her better. As soon as I lowered him onto the lawn, he jumped over the fence and tightly grabbed the handle of the car door with both paws, peering intently inside.

Solomon's claws, when he is determined, will not yield to grappling hooks. I tried in vain to tear them off the handle, he yelled furiously that he wanted to look at the old woman, Sheba from her strategic position on the drain advised me to give him a good spanking at least this time, the old woman fainted, not doubting that she was there. a crazy woman with a rabid cat is torn, - and I did the only thing left for me: I grabbed Solomon across the stomach and began to call Charles at the top of my voice. And Charles unhooked Solomon, and when I took Solomon into the house, he appeased the old woman. “Which was not easy,” he said. She kept saying that her son would return from a walk and it would not work out for us like that! But he immediately mentioned that I was his wife, and, to his amazement (he had not yet heard about how I jumped out of the gate and began to polish the hood of her car with her inside), she stroked his arm, saying: “Poor boy, poor boy, we all have our sorrows, and we must endure them courageously, ”and then treated him to mint cake.

I swore I would never let Solomon near any car again. Where exactly! Every now and then I pulled it out from under other people's cars, and if the glass turned out to be lowered, then from the inside. Charles flatly refused to interfere, and I had to take over this operation. I did not dare to open the door, even if it was unlocked. Charles said that we might be suspected of criminal intent. And so, two or three times a day, I dangled a long rope inside other people's cars, begging Solomon to be a good cat and get out of there before the owner returned. I held the rope in my outstretched hand and stood as far from the car as I could. No one could suspect me of criminal intent, but many people probably thought that I didn’t have all the houses. Moreover, Solomon did not even blow his mustache and either reclined, stretched out in the back seat, suggesting to passers-by that this was His Car and he was just Waiting for the Driver, or sniffing packages invisible on the floor.

He knew he was doing wrong. And he always ran away a second before the owner returned. But I languished in fear that one day the owner would catch him—and me. And I was also afraid that on another fine day I would not notice that he had climbed into the car, and the owner, also not noticing anything, would take him away. And as soon as I heard the noise of the car, I automatically dropped everything and ran headlong to the gate. And in