Shortly after Captain Carroll started upon his search for his missing son, Randolph Anderson, sitting peacefully in his back office, by the riverward window, was rudely interrupted.

He was mounting some new specimens.

Before him the great tiger cat lay blissfully on his red cushion.

He was not asleep, but was purring loudly in what resembled a human day-dream.

His claws luxuriously pricked through the velvet of his paws, which were extended in such a way that he might have served as a model for a bas-relief of a cat running a race.