The Cat and the King

Product Information

Fortunately, the unexpected assistance of a dragon is just what’s needed when everything seems a little hopeless... Oh, Billy,” she said with a little gasp and dropping the playful formality of the mister, “pray for me that I may keep Hagiwara here for another hour. The crisis is on at the palace. Hagiwara possesses a dreadful sixth sense of premonition, and he has been trying to make a break for the old emperor’s audience chamber ever since I arrived. He must not; he ——”

Ripping!” said Bethell, with a little intake of his breath. And she was. Tall and willowy; her head sat on her shoulders with an air of quiet assurance that was good to see; she had a great coil of auburn hair piled high above her forehead. None of your soft and melting beauty in her face. No, sir! Her features were irregular-eyes very wide apart and mouth too large, maybe, to get a certificate from a beauty specialist. But there was a stamp of—how shall I put it?—independence; yes, and glorious self-reliance and fine reserve on that face. They combined to make it handsome—striking. I was sitting on the jutting balcony of the old royal library, shadowed by great Siberian firs, when I heard a voice. It was the Girl’s. Why did you send a spy to search my trunk the first night I was in Seoul?” There was a pitiful catch and quaver in the putting of that question; outraged dignity called for reparation.

Out we go and join him and the prince. Then away to the yacht, and the devil take old Ito, the rotter!” I had completely forgotten the garden party in the swirl of events, though, as an official of the Korean government, I had been formally invited several days before. A simple celebration of the Japanese emperor’s birthday we had supposed it would be—the Girl and I; now it was plain that in honor of Japan’s greatest statesman the event had been planned. My goal is to be able to play at least one song well enough that it can be recognized, and to do so within 60 days. Bethell, scarce able to restrain his excitement, met me at the hotel. He dragged me into the deserted bar, helped himself to a hooker of rum, tossed it down, and spoke. She did not say a word as we came panting up to where she stood, but motioned that Looie bring the lamp. She preceded us into her room and nodded to a little alcove, jutting out into the broad balcony which girdled the second story of the hotel. There her trunk stood, opened. By it was a sprawling blotch of blue—the blue of the Japanese coolie’s surtout.

I can never forget the dramatic quality of that meeting in the darkened guest room of this real Korean patriot. We—Bethell and I—had come like thieves in the night, and like thieves we sat about the single rushlight, which stood on an inlaid teak stand amid the tobacco jars and the dull-gleaming amber seals of the prince’s office, and spoke in whispers. Bethell and I both itched to know who she was and what she could be doing in Seoul, where mighty few white women except missionaries and the wives of diplomats ever come. We raced through our meal and got Looie aside out in the bar to tell us all he knew. Looie shrugged his shoulders and cast his eyes to the ceiling. I was presented to the great man in my turn, and then I began a furtive search for the Girl. I found her the center of a group of Japanese notables, with Hagiwara hovering slavishly at her elbow. I cannot hope to reproduce here the sallies of wit, the ready pleasantries, all of the verbal ammunition of a past mistress in the art of social generalship by which this dazzling woman kept ever under her power a devoted circle of slant-eyed gallants. Indeed, her Japanese admirers had to share her attentions with several men from the legations, who occasionally managed to break through the embargo; but I noticed that the Girl carefully played her cards so as to keep by her always the sedulous Higawara. She seemed to be using Hagiwara’s countrymen as a sort of screen to protect her assault in force, which was upon that selfsame unsuspecting little dandy. Not for near half an hour did I manage to get within safe earshot of her, and that was for the few minutes that Hagiwara was absent on a mission of forage for delicacies. Then, on the third night, came the message from the palace. How Prince Min Yung had contrived the circuitous channel of its delivery passed my comprehension, for it was one of Bethell’s printers who tiptoed in the bar from a rear entrance and whispered something in the vernacular into the editor’s ears. Bethell’s eyes snapped.So the Girl rode to meet Adventure with a laugh on her lips. Through the twisted streets of this ancient heap of ruins—the city of a thousand years’ sleep—passed a bronze-haired Semiramis, bound on a mission to steal an emperor. And there was I, chained by her eyes, her voice, her superb spirit of daring, deliberately following into a labyrinth of Oriental guile from which there well might be no return. Yet I went fatuously. I felt like D’Artagnan, riding into Paris to snatch a prize from fate at the end of a long sword. Girl,” I murmured, “if a man can share your failure—could always be by to help if failure came again—would it be worth ——” We both enjoyed the ending, with a garden party and surprise antagonist who needs defeating, and the neighbouring family the King and Cat become friends with. A King and his companion/friend, the Cat, live together in a castle, until an Unfortunate Incident burns their home to the ground and they are forced to move with their meagre possessions to a semi-detached suburban house. The King has never washed up before, moved a box, bought shopping. The Cat and he navigate their new world and meet their neighbours - will they be able to acclimatise and fit in in this very different world? I would have to kill you where you stand, Bethell,” Prince Min Yung said quietly, “if you laid a violent hand on the person of my ruler.”

What, your majesty!’ says this woman of the burning hair. ‘Are you not emperor, lord of all in earth? Will you be fooled to your destruction by these traitorous witch doctors? See, I am painting the face of a monarch—not of a fool.’ And at that his majesty falls to weeping and calling himself an idiot. Oh, gentlemen! Tragedy and comedy were there, too strong to bear.” Looie came running into the bar from his little office, where he had been nodding away his regular nightly potations. There was a sound of pattering feet in the servants’ quarters behind the hotel. The watchman at the gate set up an infernal shaking of his iron staff, cluttered with tinkling rings. Bravely she laughed, though there were dark shadows of doubt in the limpid depths of her eyes for the first time since she had engaged on this high adventure. I left her side with the tell-tale message of those eyes a cold weight on my heart. The lightning’s striking closer every minute,” he said, in a low, serious voice. “I got it straight from the palace this morning that two of the emperor’s mutang (sorcerers) died last night. They ate a venison pie which the old boy refused to touch.” Last, I set up on OpenVAS box. I'll use it to to vulnerability scans on the network, and hopefully be able to be a bit more proactive about keeping things secure. I've used OpenVAS in the past, and am quite familiar with vulnerability scanners as part of my career, so this isn't really that exciting.I think we'd want to read another story about the pair and their new life - there was unexplored story with the castle servants, and it would be lovely to see how a King copes with other aspects of 'normal' life. We went out of the palace to the wildwood behind; but the chapfallen chamberlain did not have a chance to show any of the quaint beauties of tilted gable and carven lions. Hagiwara did that. The little Japanese strutted by the Girl’s side as if he were stepping on rose leaves. I, who kept at a distance behind with the chamberlain, could hear the patter of his syncopated English, broken by occasional gusts of the Girl’s full-throated laughter. Hagiwara was completely by the ears. When he handed the Girl into the carriage after our tour of the deer park, he insisted that she must accept his invitation to the garden party that was to be given the following week at the Japanese legation. It was in celebration of the birthday of the emperor of Japan. It was midnight. The Girl stood by my side on the yacht as it rushed full speed down the yellow Han on the way to the sea. We were by the rail. I had dared to cover her hand with mine, and to press her arm against my side in a little heartening, comradely grip. The Girl was weeping, and she made no show of concealing it. At last she raised her eyes, all wet, to mine, and looked at me a long time. Dear Mr. Billy: Would it be troubling you too much to run down to Chemulpo some time this evening so that you may expedite through all the horrid port regulations a party of friends of mine—hunters after tigers or some other dreadful animals—who are coming from Chefoo on their yacht? I received word that they were coming some time to-night or early to-morrow morning; but they seemed in doubt whether in the disturbed condition of the country they and their guns would be mistaken for a filibustering expedition. I know that as a customs officer you will be able to render them some very much appreciated Service. The day after the emperor signed away Korean independence at the point of the bayonet it was reported that Prince Min Yung had “committed suicide” in his home. At least, that was the official report.