Sly, bright eyed and bushy tailed, sets out from his home in the northwest corner of England to see the world. This art after Louis Wain, the celebrated late-Victorian cat illustrator. 

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The bright eyes . . . the jaunty stepping . . . the perky, feathered cap. 

Lordy-lord! The boots! * 

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Everything about him says, plain as can be, 

Look out world, here I come.

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This one's a real go-getter. He's taught himself to speak. (You listen closely, you can make him out.) He's somehow learned to read, and to write. He scrawls horrifically, but, hell, don't you?

 

I chronicle those early struggles in recollections. It's years later. He's a wise old bird, the trusted advisor to a king. A creature of wide interests, he corresponds with thinkers all over Europe, proffering his outrageous opinions to scholarly top-dogs from Vienna to London, on everything under the sun.

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He works his song-and-dance, I work mine.

We're two of a kind, both more than a bit off-balance. (We're a good team.)

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Look out world, herewe come.

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* Stolen off some little rich girl's expensively dressed doll, I don't doubt. His mama had fashioned him make-believe high-top boots (he loved to play pirate) consisting of straps wound round his lower limbs to support weak ankles (he was the runt of his litter), fine for barnyard rovings but in no way suitable for a trot down to London Town. Those things must hurt like hell. He won't be wearing them long. He dons them when he wants to make a big impression. 

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