Catty Atkins, financier

Front matter

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CHAPTER ONE C ATTY,” says I, “it can’t be done.”

“What can’t?” he said, and cocked his eyes at me with the kind of expression he gets in them when he is looking for an argument. Catty Atkins loves arguments the way a mouse loves cheese.

“Why,” says I, “getting to be a millionaire.” “Folks have,” he says.

“But not the way the paper says this fellow did.”

“How was that?”

“It says he earned fifty dollars working on a farm, and then started out. And he made that fifty grow into a million.”

“How long ago?” says Catty.

“When he was forty.”

“Huh,” says Catty, kind of disdainful. “Pretty slow, wasn’t he. Must have taken him more than twenty years.”

“I’d like to see you raise fifty dollars to a million in a hundred years,” says I.

He looked me over a minute and then he says, “We’ve got fifty dollars.”

“We have,” says I, “and then some.”

“Then let’s make a million.”

“Your tree is full of crows,” says I.

“Wee-Wee Moore,” says he, “'we can do it.”

“We can peel sunburn off a garter snake,” says I.

“Listen here. This sort of gets me excited. Let’s try it anyhow.”

“Everybody does,” says I. “Show me a man that isn’t trying to be a millionaire.”

“Hardly anybody is,” says he. “Most men are contented to run groceries, or drive trucks, or work in a bank, or dig ditches. They don’t try for anything else. So long as they can make a pretty fair living, why, they’re sat¬ isfied. They don’t set out to be millionaires, so they never get to be millionaires.”

“Huh,” says I.

“It won’t hurt to try,” says he.

“I’ll do anything once,” says I, “but let’s not advertise it. Folks would put us in a padded cell.”

“All right. Secret it is. Wait a minute while I think it out.” So I waited while he puckered up his eyes and kind of waved the end of his nose in the air, and thought. “I’ve got it,” says he. “We’ll go in partnership. Our capital is fifty dollars. We’ll see how big we can make it grow during this vacation. A start toward our million.”

“Fine,” says I. “Mowing lawns, I suppose.”

“That,” says he, “is labor. It isn’t finance.”

“Oh, this is going to be finance.”

“With a capital F,” says he. “The idea is to make our money earn more money. That’s the rule of the game. We musn’t earn money just by working. The only way we can use our fifty dollars is to use it, see?”

“I don’t,” says I.

“I hardly expected you to,” says he.

“Go chase yourself,” says I.

“Now listen,” he says, “while I print out the directions. We’re to use our fifty dollars to make money with. That means we can’t just work at some job and add what we earn to the fifty. Any money we make, the fifty must have a share in. It must be money we couldn’t make without using the fifty as cap¬ ital. Understand now?”

“I kind of see a dim light,” says I. “We can’t earn a dollar driving the grocery wagon. That’s labor. But we can buy a cow with our fifty and sell it for sixty—and that’s finance.”

“You plunked it right in the eye,” says he.

“When do we start ?” says I.

“Now/’ says he, and that was just like him. When he got it into his head to do a thing, he was always sorry he couldn’t start it yes¬ terday, but so long as he couldn’t he wouldn’t waste a second. It had to start right then. Wouldn’t waste a minute.

“We’ll go to the bank and draw fifty dol¬ lars out of our savings account,” says he.

“You carry it,” I says, “because if I did, we’d be fifty dollars farther away from our million than we are now.”

“You’d lose your skin if it wasn’t stuck on you,” he says. “Come on.”

Just as we were coming out of the bank I looked up and there was a kid about our age driving up in an automobile. It was a little one with just one seat, but it looked pretty slick.

“We’ll have one of them when we get our million,” says I.

“Who is he?” says Catty.

“Never saw him before,” says I.

Then the kid stopped his car and leaned out and looked us up and down kind of un¬ pleasant and when he’d got through he says, “Hey, you kids, where can I buy some gaso¬ line in this cow pasture?”

“You don't buy it," says Catty, “you have to milk it from the cows."

“Don’t get smart with me," says the kid.

“No, sir," says Catty, innocent-like. “Thank you, sir."

“I want some gas for my car," says the kid. “How can I get it?"

“One way is to have better manners," says Catty.

But I was interested. “Say," I says, “is that your car?"

Catty sent his elbow into my ribs, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know.

“ ’Course it’s mine," says the kid, kind of swelling up like he was a balloon. “Dad gave it to me on my birthday."

“He must like you," says Catty.

“He gives me everything I ask for. You bet he likes me," the kid says.

“That must be because he knows you better than I do," says Catty. “Now I wouldn’t give you an auto on your birthday. Uh-uh."

“From the looks of you, you couldn’t give me a postage stamp."

“Never can tell from the looks of a bee how hard he can sting," says Catty.

“I got no time to talk to you," says the kid.

“I want some gas, and I want it quick. I got to get back to the lake.”

“Go ahead,” says Catty. “Nobody's got you chained. The quicker you get back to the lake the worse off the lake ’ll be.”

“I’ve a notion,” says the kid, “to get out and bust you one.”

“It’s been done,” says Catty. “But we’ve got a rule in this town. It says when anybody busts you one, you’ve got to bust him two right back again.”

“Huh. My father had me taught to box by a professional.”

Catty turned to me. “You take him on, Wee-wee. I’d like to see how a fellow fights that’s been taught by a professional.”

“Oh, two to one,” says the kid.

“No,” says Catty, “pick your choice. The odd man will hold the coats.”

“I can’t stop to whale you to-day. I’ve got to get back. Where’s that gasoline place ?”

“Go straight ahead,” says Catty, “till you come to the first corner. Turn straight up and keep on until two o’clock. . . . Come on, Wee-wee. We’ve got business to attend to.”

So off we walked, leaving that kid looking as if somebody had fed him a red pepper. Honest,

I thought he was going off like a firecracker. But Catty never looked back.

“Guess he’s a millionaire,” says I.

“If he is,” says Catty, “then I don’t want to be one.”

“Wonder who he is?”

“Guess I know,” Catty says.

“Who?”

“Son of that man that built the big house on the lake. Bought the old Ramsey Farm and fixed it up for a summer place. I heard they came yesterday.”

“What’s his name ?”

“Toop,” says Catty.

“Gosh,” says I, “I wouldn’t have a name like that for all his money.”

“Names don’t matter,” says Catty. “It’s what you do with them.”

“Maybe,” says I, “but Toop sounds like some kind of animal caught in the wilds of Australia.”

Catty shook his head. “I feel it in my bones I’m going to have trouble with that kid.”

Well, that was that, but the feeling Catty had in his bones was good prophecy. Trouble was what we had with Mister Toop. We had bushels of it. Toop! Now, how do you sup¬ pose he got that name. And his first name was

Adrian. Can you beat it ? Adrian Toop. Oh, my aunt’s cat’s hind foot!

“Let’s get busy,” says Catty.

“Fine.”

“Now, how can we use fifty dollars to make some more?”

“Start a lemonade stand,” says I.

“Remember the last one we had?”

“Sure.”

“How much did we make?”

“About two dollars in a week.”

“Guess we won’t tackle a lemonade stand,” says he. “We got to think this out careful before we invest. First, we’ve got to make sure we won’t lose money. That’s the first rule of making money, or if it isn’t, it ought to be. We’ve got to invest safely. Then we’ve got to see to it we make a good return on our money. What we want is a quick turnover.”

“Anything like an apple turnover ?” say I.

“A quick turnover means you put your money into something you can sell right off and make a profit and have your money back to invest in something else. The more often you turn your money over the more profit you make.”

“Good,” says I, “you turn it over to me, and

I’ll turn it over to you again. That ’ll be two turnovers. How much ’ll we make on it?”

“Wee-wee,” says Catty, “there are days when you’re almost intelligent, but yesterday was the day. Maybe there ’ll be another to¬ morrow, but to-day—well, to-day you better stay in the house, where nothing can hurt you.”

“Can we hire folks to work for us?”

“That’s fair,” says he. “All capitalists do.”

“Then,” says I, “why not get some jobs mowing lawns? We can get, say fifty cents apiece. Then we can hire other kids to do the mowing for, say, forty cents. Give us ten cents profit on each lawn.”

“Now,” says Catty, “you’re getting around toward an idea. Maybe to-day is one of your bright days.”

“Well says I.

“No hurry. We’ll talk it over, and think it over, and examine into all the investment op¬ portunities that are open to us. It’s bad to decide too quickly.”

“All right,” says I. “I’ve thought up some¬ thing. Now you think up something.”

“A fellow who can have one good idea, can have a dozen,” says Catty. “That’s what’s wrong with so many folks. They get one good notion, and they rest on it. Your head’s to think with. It’s there to make you get along in the world. So, Wee-wee, don’t stop just be¬ cause you got an idea. Get another and an¬ other and another. If you can make money out of one idea, you can make four times as much with four ideas.”

“Sounds reasonable,” says I. “Here goes. One, two, three— Splash!”

So there we sat, on the fence just this side of Catty’s father’s mills, and we thought and thought and thought. I didn’t have another idea come to me, but pretty soon I saw one begin to blossom all over Catty.

“I guess I got something,” says he. “What do you think of this ?”

“Spill it,” says I, “and we’ll see.”

CHAPTER TWO I NEVER knew it was so hard to make

money. Once I heard a man say that if you

had money, it was easy to make more. Well,

he didn't know what he was talking about.

There were Catty and I. We had money.

Fifty dollars. We started out to make a mil- «/

lion. It was afternoon and we hadn’t made a single cent! We’d been at it four whole hours and our fifty dollars wasn’t a bit larger than it had been at the start.

“There,” says I to Catty, “you see. You can’t make money. Look at the day almost gone. It can’t be done. I knew it couldn’t.” “You’ve got to get an idea first,” says he. “What good is an idea?” says I. “You can’t sell ideas.”

“Can’t, eh?” says he. “You can sell ’em quicker ’n anything else if they’re any good. Look at the man who had an idea you could reap grain with a machine instead of with a scythe. Sold it, didn’t he? And the man who thought up an automobile. It was just an idea in the beginning, but he sold it.”

“That was inventing/’ says I, “and we’re not inventors.”

“Everything,” says he, “that you think up is inventing.”

“Well,” says I, “just before lunch you said you had an idea. Now get busy with it. You haven’t told me what it is yet.”

“I was just working it into shape,” says he.

“Is it worked?”

“Pretty nearly.”

“Fit the rules—the one that we made up that we had to use our money to make more?”

“Yes.”

“Then, for cat’s sake, what is it?”

But before he could tell me an automobile stopped by us and a man hollered, “Hey, you kid.”

We looked up to see what he wanted.

“Sav,” he says, “do you know anybody who has a rowboat for sale?”

“What kind of a rowboat?” says Catty.

“Why,” says the man kind of sharp and domineering, “one with oars to it, that goes in the water.”

“Um. ...” says Catty, “you don’t care whether it’s flat-bottomed, round-bottomed, clinker, or what, eh?”

The man looked kind of blank, and you could see he didn’t know a rowboat from a poplar tree.

“What I want is a good safe rowboat,” he says.

“I can sell you one,” says Catty. “Twelvefoot boat, clinker bottom, two pairs of oars. Built of cedar. She’s in fine shape, fresh painted.”

“Where is it?”

“Still,” says Catty, half to himself, “I dunno’s I want to sell. Won’t sell unless I get my price.”

“Where can I see it?”

“I wouldn’t let it go a cent less than thirty-five dollars,” says Catty. “So if you don’t want to pay that, you need’t look at it at all.”

“I guess I can stand thirty-five dollars,” says the man kind of pompous-like.

“All right then, you be at the waterworks down on the bayou at three o’clock. I’ll have her there.”

“Can’t we go now ?” says the man.

“I’ll have her there at three,” says Catty. “It’s the only boat I know of in town that’s for sale. Three o’clock.”

“All right,” says the man, and off he drove in his car.

Then I turned to Catty. “What kind of a joke are you playing on that fellow ?” I wanted to know. “You don’t own any more rowboats than a camel in the desert of Sahara. You never owned a rowboat. You never wanted to own a rowboat.”

“But I’m going to own one in half an hour,” says he.

“Build it?” says I, kind of sarcastic.

“No,” says he, “I’m going to pick it off a rowboat vine.”

“What ’re you up to, anyhow?”

“Opportunity,” says he.

“Fiddlesticks,” says I.

“If you’re going to be a financier, you’ve got to be ready to grab opportunities,” says he. “As soon as this man says rowboat I knew it was a chance to make money.”

“You as good as sold that man a boat, and you don’t own any. He’ll go down there at three o’clock, and you won’t be there and the boat won’t be there. Next time he sees you he’ll chase you up the side of a house.”

“You’re no financier,” says Catty.

“Maybe not, but I’m not your kind of a joker either.”

“Come along,” says Catty.

“Where?”

“Down to the waterworks.”

“You don’t mean you’re going there?”

“You bet,” says he.

“Leave me out,” says I, “that man’ll come, and he’ll boot us both into the drink.”

“Maybe not,” he says kind of provoking, and of course I went along, because I couldn’t very well do anything else. If Catty was going to get himself into a mess, I just naturally had to be along to kind of help out if there was any helping to be done.

We went to the engine room of the water¬ works, and Catty says, “Afternoon, Mr. Friddle. How’s the pump working to-day ?”

“Same’s usual,” says Mr. Friddle.

“My,” says Catty, “you keep that engine looking fine. It’s a wonder more folks don’t come down to look at it. One of the sights of the town, I say.”

“Huh,” says Mr. Friddle.

“Pike bitin’ ?” asked Catty.

Then Catty turned and looked toward the bayou, which was maybe a hundred feet away. “Got a new boat?” he says, kind of astonished.

“Painted,” says Mr. Friddle.

“Looks like new,” says Catty.

“Good’s new,” says Mr. Friddle. “Fixed her up to sell.”

“To sell? Honest?” Catty turned to me and says, “Don’t you wish we owned a boat? Wish we had money enough to buy her. But boats cost a lot of money.”

“This one don’t,” says Mr. Friddle. “It’s dirt cheap.”

“Maybe to you, Mr. Friddle, but what would be cheap to a man like you would be awful dear to us.” He kind of hesitated like he was afraid to ask, and then he did ask, “How much you want for her?”

“Thutty dollars,” says Mr. Friddle.

“I don’t s’pose that’s much for a fine boat like that, but thirty dollars! Say, Wee-wee, how much we got between us? We could dig up twenty-five, couldn’t we?”

“I—I guess so,” says I.

“Twenty-five,” says Catty, as doleful as if he was going to his own funeral. “ ’Tain’t only five dollars less than thirty. Wouldn’t take twenty-five dollars for her, Mr. Friddle?”

“G’wan and don’t pester me,” says Mr. Friddle.

So we went away, but not far. Catty took twenty-five dollars out of his pocket, and it was all in one-dollar bills. “I got ’em in ones on pur¬ pose,” says he. “Fifty one-dollar bills look like a lot more money than two twenties and a ten.”

“We’d better get out of here before that man . comes.”

“He isn’t due till three,” says Catty. “I’m going to let Mr. Friddle look at this money. There’s folks who can’t look at money without wanting it.”

So back we went. Mr. Friddle was sitting outside the door, looking at the bayou. We didn’t say a word, but sat down about ten feet away from him, and Catty took out the money.

“Let’s count it,” says he, “to make sure we haven’t lost any.”

We started in to count. Catty waved every bill around where Mr. Friddle could see it, and took a lot of time to it. He felt over every bill to see there weren’t two sticking together.

“Twenty-five,” says I. “It’s all there.”

“I didn’t make it but twenty-four,” says Catty. “We’ll count it again.”

We did. I made twenty-five the same as before, but Catty couldn’t get past twenty-four. I was disgusted with him. “Say,” I says, “what ails you? If you can’t count to twenty-five you’d better go off in the woods and practice.”

“There aren’t but twenty-four,” he says stubborn-like.

“There’s twenty-five,” says I.

Then Catty turned to Mr. Friddle. “Won’t you please count this over for us?” he asked. “We can’t seem to make it come out right.”

Well, Mr. Friddle he counted, slow and like he was enjoying himself. He kind of patted every bill, and when he was through he let them lay on his lap like they were a pet cat.

“I make twenty-five,” he says.

“I knew it,” says I.

“What you goin’ to do with all this money?” says Mr. Friddle.

“Put in the bank, I guess,” says Catty.

“Um. . . .” He turned and looked at the boat. “Sure this is your’n to spend like you want to ?”

“It belongs to us,” says Catty.

“Your pas wouldn’t be mad at me if I was to sell you my boat ?”

“They’d like it,” says Catty.

“Well,” says Mr. Friddle, “twenty-five in the hand is worth thirty in the bush. Ye kin have the boat if you want her.” Mr. Friddle was shoving the money into his pocket. I looked at Catty and he looked back and winked a large wink.

“We’ve bought a boat,” says he. “Let’s go look her over.”

We did. Catty was grinning from one ear to the other. “I knew that old skeezicks would never let that real money get away, once he’d touched it,” says he.

“How’d you know it?” says I.

“Oh,” says Catty, “you have to study folks if you want to get along in this world. You got to know how they act.”

“What I want to know,” says I, “is how this other man ’ll act. We’ve got twenty-five dol¬ lars tied up in a boat.”

“He’ll be along pretty soon now,” says Catty.

Sure enough, along came the man, and Catty met him. Right in front of Mr. Friddle.

“Well,” says the man, “where’s your boat?”

“Right there,” says Catty, pointing.

Mr. Friddle kind of pricked up his ears, and when we went down to look at the boat he tagged right after. The man made believe he knew a lot about boats. He poked her and rocked her and asked if she leaked and all that, but you could see a boat was a complete stranger to him.

“How much did you say it was?” he asked.

“Thirty-five dollars,” says Catty. Mr. Friddle made a noise like somebody had stuck a pin in him.

“Give you thirty,” says the man.

“Told you not to come if you wouldn’t pay thirty-five/’ says Catty.

Mr. Friddle made another noise. Something must have been hurting him.

“Come on, Wee-wee,” says Catty to me.

“Where you going?” says the man.

“Home,” says Catty.

‘Til give you thirty-two-fifty,” says the man.

Catty just walked ofif.

“All right,” says the man, “Fll give you thirty-five to stop the argument.”

There hadn’t been any argument that I saw.

“Cash,” says Catty.

The man took out his pocketbook and counted off three tens and a five. “There you are,” he says. “Now this is my boat.”

“For better and for worse,” says Catty. “Much obliged. Afternoon.”

We started off, but Mr. Friddle followed us, kind of moaning. “Hem,” says he.

We stopped and he looked at us mournful and reproachful.

“Thutty-five dollars,” says he.

“Thirty-five,” says Catty.

“You knowed it,” said Mr. Friddle.

Catty didn’t say anything.

Mr. Friddle waggled his head. “Calc’late I'm a-losin’ of my grip,” he says to himself,

“when two kids can come along and hornswoggle me in sich a way as this.” He waggled his head some more. “Young feller/’ says he to Catty, “you want to watch out. You’re goin’ to end up either ownin’ a bank or in jail—and I got a idee jail ’ll be the place. . . . Thutty-five dollars. Ten dollars smouged off of me. By a kid.”

“Fair and square, wasn’t it?” says Catty.

“Mebby so,” says Mr. Friddle, “but it was slick, all-fired slick.” He went into the engine room, and the last we saw of him he was still waggling his head and saying over and over, “Thutty-five dollars. . . . Thutty-five dollars.”

We walked toward home. “Well,” says Catty, “our fifty has grown to sixty.”

“The first day,” says I. “That’s five dollars apiece we’ve made. Pretty good wages. . . . Now what’s your big idea ?”

“It wasn’t such a big one,” says Catty, “just a kind of starter. Something to begin with. . . . Say, you said money couldn’t make money, didn’t you? Well, what did it just do?”

“Luck,” says I

“Luck nothing,” says Catty.

“What if that man had asked somebody else about boats?”

“Why,” says Catty, “somebody else wouldn’t have had the money to seize the opportunity, or wouldn’t have seen it was an opportunity, or they wouldn’t have known how to work it. There isn’t any luck about it. Everybody has chances, only they don’t know they are chances. That’s what’s the matter with most folks who complain about their luck. What they ought to complain about is their brains.”

“That isn’t telling me your idea.”

“All right,” says he, “let’s sit down and whittle, and I’ll see what you think of it.”

CHAPTER THREE fT^HIS,” says Catty, “isn’t the Big Idea,

A not the one that’s going to make our mil¬ lion. It’s just one to be working at until the big one comes along.”

“Well,” says I, “if you don’t get to telling what it is pretty soon, I’ll be too old to work at it before I know what it is.”

“It’s this,” says Catty. “Summer visitors.”

“Board ’em?” says I.

“No,” says Catty, “manicure their finger nails.” He looked at me kind of irritated, so I shut up and waited. It’s hard to do. “They’re out there at the lake,” says he, “working awful hard pretending they’re having a good time. Maybe they are. Anyhow, they’ve got to eat, and they’ve got to eat every day. A lot of them would rather have things brought than to drive into town to get them. So here’s the idea. We’ll rent a horse and a light wagon, and we’ll drive out every afternoon and take orders for any¬ thing. See? To be delivered in the morning. We can use our capital buying garden stuff and eggs and such-like to sell, and on the stuff they order from stores we can charge extra for de¬ livering. Maybe we won’t make much, but we’ll be making something, and all the time we can be keeping our eyes open for a place to invest our money.”

“Sounds reasonable,” says I.

“What we’ve got to keep in mind,” says he, “is that we’ve got to keep our money working. Every dollar we have lying idle is a loafer.”

“Sure,” says I. “Where can we rent a nag?”

“That’s easy,” says he, “but before we rent one we’ll try out the scheme. Take our bikes. We’ll do it this afternoon. Jt isn’t much of a ride and we can divide up the cottages and take orders. If it works out, then we can rent a horse. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to think up something else.”

“Fine,” says I. “Let’s get busy.”

“All business will be C. O. D.,” says Catty.

“You bet,” says I.

So we got our bicycles and started off. The road ran out beside the river, and then branched off to skirt the big swamp. It passed through Six Mile Woods, and then came out on the lake. It was a pretty good road as roads go and we hustled along average spry. We were just crossing the corner of Six Mile Woods when a man stepped out of a clump of bushes and stood in the road. He looked at us sharp.

“Where you goin’ ?” says he.

I was kind of scared, because it was a lonely place, but Catty didn’t seem to get any steam up at all. “We’re going to the lake,” he says.

“Pass anybody on the road?” the man asked.

“Several,” says Catty. “Why?”

“See a kind of funny-lookin’ feller with big bug-eye specs?”

The man turned and spoke to somebody back in the bushes. “Either he ain’t come yet, or else he’s ahead of us,” he says.

“He’s ahead, all right,” says the other.

That was all of that. We rode along kind of wondering.

“Now what d’ye s’pose those men were after?” says Catty.

“Funny-lookin’ feller with specs,” says I.

“Why were they after him? Who were they? I didn’t much care for that man’s looks.”

“No idea why they were after him. Maybe they’re deputies,” says I.

“Didn’t act like it,” says Catty. “I’ll bet something is up.”

“Maybe,” says I, “and it can be higher up so long as it doesn't interfere with us.”

But right then I had a feeling. If something was up in the neighborhood, Catty Atkins would be in it or bust. He was the greatest meddler I ever saw, and trouble came and sat on his lap like it was a cat and he offered to scratch its head. I didn’t like the looks of things from that minute.

“Wish we hadn’t come out this road,” says I.

“Why?”

“Because,” says I, “we’re going to land in another muddle.”

“You give me a pain, Wee-wee Moore,” says Catty. “What’s the use living if you can’t be in things? We’ve been in several, haven’t we, and got a* lot out of them.”

“I’ve had enough to last me,” says I. “Maybe you like being scared to death, but I don’t. I’m for peace and quiet.”

“Peace and quiet’s about all we’ll get this summer,” says he. Then he stopped and got off his bike. “What’s that?” he says.

“What’s what?” I asked him.

He pointed, and I looked. What I saw looked like the back part of a man who was crawling along on all fours. The thing moved.

“Let’s take a look,” says Catty.

“Nix/’ says I, “Em taking orders for garden stuff, not for inmates of menageries/'

“It's no animal," says he.

“So much the worse," says I, “I don't want anything to do with a man who crawls around in these woods on all fours. Maybe he wouldn't fit into a menagerie, but he’d go fine in a lunatic asylum."

“What," says Catty, “if he turned out to be an escaped lunatic?"

“I'll tell you what," says I. “If he did turn out that way, you’d have to ride your bike awful fast to keep up with me."

“Let's take a look," says he.

“There's nothing I want to see," I says.

“All right," he says, “stay there and wait for me."

He dropped his bike and started into the woods. I held back a minute, because I didn't have any hankering to get acquainted with any crazy men. I never like that kind. No telling what they’ll do. But Catty went right along, and there wasn’t anything for me to do but to follow after him. It wasn’t any fun, and I didn’t expect to get any fun out of it, and I was so scared my teeth sounded like a telegraph office. But it wouldn’t look right to let Catty go boggling off alone.