At all events he followed me into my room, which only boasted of a mattress, stuffed with tussock-grass by the way, on the floor.

Here I should have slept very well after my long journey, if Prince would have permitted it.

In vain I put him out of the window, not always very gently; he returned in five minutes, bringing a palpitating, just-caught bird or mouse, which he softly dropped on my face, and purred loudly with delight at his own gallantry.

Twenty times did I strike a match that night and try to restore the victims to life; only one recovered sufficiently to be released, and Prince brought it in again, quite dead, five minutes later.

I shut the little casement window, but the room became so hot and stuffy, and suspicious fumes of stale beer and tobacco began to assert their presence, so that I found myself obliged to open it again.
Sometimes the victim's bones were crunched close to my ear, and I found more than one feather in my hair in the morning.