As long as he could remember, there was scarcely a week in town but some homeless dog attached himself to Siward's heels, sometimes trotting several blocks, sometimes following him home--where the outcast was always cared for, washed, fed, and ultimately shipped out to the farm, where scores of these "fresh-air" dogs resided on his bounty and rolled in luxury on his lawns.
Cats, too, were prone to notice him, rising as he passed to hoist an interrogative tail and make tentative observations.
In Washington Square, these, and the ragged children, knew him best of all.

The children came from Minetta Lane and the purlieus south and west of it; the cats from the Mews, which Siward always thought most appropriate.
And now, as he passed the marble arch and entered the square, glancing behind him he saw the inevitable cat trotting, and, at his left, a very dirty little girl pretending to trundle a hoop, but plainly enough keeping sociable pace with him.
"Hello!" said Siward.

The cat stopped; the child tossed her clustering curls, gave him a rapid but fearless sidelong glance, laughed, and ran on in the wake of her hoop.

When she caught it she sat down on a bench opposite the fountain and looked around at Siward.
"It's pretty warm, isn't it ?" said Siward, coming up and seating himself on the same bench.
"Are you lame ?" asked the child.
"Oh, a little." "Is your leg broken ?" "Oh, no, not now." "Is that your cat ?" Siward looked around; the cat was seated on the bench beside him.

But he was accustomed to that sort of thing, and he caressed the creature with his gloved hand.
"Are you rich ?" asked the child, shaking her blond curls from her eyes and staring up solemnly at him.
"Not very," he answered, smiling.