Through the door in the hall leading to the basement he called "Hssst!" several times, as though assisting the cat's departure, till by some strange coincidence the butler appeared below.
"You can go to bed, Parfitt," said old Jolyon.

"I will lock up and put out." When he again entered the dining-room the cat unfortunately preceded him, with her tail in the air, proclaiming that she had seen through this manouevre for suppressing the butler from the first....
A fatality had dogged old Jolyon's domestic stratagems all his life.
Young Jolyon could not help smiling.

He was very well versed in irony, and everything that evening seemed to him ironical.

The episode of the cat; the announcement of his own daughter's engagement.

So he had no more part or parcel in her than he had in the Puss! And the poetical justice of this appealed to him.
"What is June like now ?" he asked.
"She's a little thing," returned old Jolyon; "they say she's like me, but that's their folly.