Cats — Gordon Stables

“If ye mane to write a preface to your book, sure you must put it in the end entoirely.” Such was the advice an Irish friend gave me, when I talked of an introductory chapter to the present work on cats. I think it was a good one. Whether it be owing to our style of living now-a-days, which tends more to the development of brain than muscle; or whether it be, as Darwin says, that we really are descended from the ape, and, as the years roll on, are losing that essentially animal virtue -- patience; certainly it is true that we cannot tolerate prefaces, preludes, and long graces before meat, as our grandfathers did. A preface, like Curaçoa -- and -- B, before dinner, ought to be short and sweet: something merely to give an edge to appetite, or it had as well be put in the “end entoirely,” or better still, in the fire.