As I am a funny old tabby myself, I have to mix with them.

If I refuse invitations to take tea with them, they invite themselves to tea with me.

"The poor Major," they say, "is so lonely." And they bait their little hooks and angle for gossip of which I am supposed--Heaven knows why--to be a sort of stocked pond.

They don't carry home much of a catch, I assure you....

Well, of some of them I am quite fond.