The Story of Jennie- or the Abandoned Read Free Page B

where the streets were dirtier and horrible smells arose from the gutters to poison his nostrils and make him feel sick, mingled with the odour of coffee and tea and spices that came from the closed-up shops. And nowhere was there any shelter, or friendly human voice, or hand stretched forth to help him.
    Hunger was now added to the torments that beset him hunger and the knowledge that he was fast approaching the end of his strength. But rather than stop running and face new dangers, Peter was determined to keep on until he dropped. Then he would lie there until he died.
    He ran. He stopped. He started again. He faltered and kept on. He thought his eyes would burst from his head, and his chest was burning from his effort to draw breath. But ever when he came to pause, something happened to drive him on .a door banging, a shout, a sign waving in the wind, some new noise assaulting his sensitive ears, dark, threatening shapes of buildings, a policeman glistening in his tall helmet and rain cape, hideous bursts of music from wireless sets in upper-storey windows, a cabbage flung at him that went bounding along the pavement like a head without a body, drunken feet staggering out of a pub door, a bottle thrown that crashed into a hundred pieces on the pavement close to him and showered him with glass.
    He kept on as best he could, but running only weakly now as exhaustion crept up on him.
    But the neighbourhood had changed again, the little shops and the lighted upstairs windows were gone, and Peter now entered a forbidding area of huge black sprawling buildings, of blank walls and deserted streets, of barred doors and iron gates, and long, wet, slippery steel rails he knew were railway tracks.
    The yellow street lamps shone wetly on the towering sides of the warehouses and behind them the docks and the sides of great ships in the Pool, for it was to this section of London down by the Thames that Peter's wild flight had taken him.
    And there, just as he felt that he could not run or stagger another step, Peter came upon a building in which the street light showed the door standing slightly ajar. And the next moment he had slipped inside.
    It was a huge warehouse piled high with sacks of grain which gave forth a warm, comfortable, sweetish smell. There was straw on the floor and the sacks were firm and dry.
    Using his sharp, curved claws to help him, Peter pulled himself up on to a layer of sacks. The rough jute felt good against his soaked fur and skin. With another sack against his back, it was almost warm. His limbs trembling with weariness, he stretched out and closed his eyes.
    At that moment a voice close to him said: 'Trepassing, eh? All right, my lad. Outside. Come on. Quick! Out you go!'
    It was not a human voice, yet Peter understood him perfectly. He opened his eyes. Although there was no illumination in the warehouse, he found he could see clearly by the light of the street lamp outside.
    The speaker was a big yellow tomcat with a long, lean, stringy body, a large head as square as a tiger's, and an ugly, heavy scar running straight across his nose.
    Peter said: 'Please, I can't. Mayn't I stay here a little while? I'm so tired.'
    The cat looked at him out of hard yellow eyes and growled, 'You heard me, chum. I don't like your looks. Pack off!'
    'But I'm not hurting anything,' Peter protested. 'All I want to do is rest a little and get dry. Honestly, I won't touch a thing.'
    `You won't touch a thing,' mocked the yellow cat. 'That's rich. I'll wager you won't. I work here, son. We don't allow strangers about these premises. Now get out before I knock you out.'
    'I won't,' said Peter, his stubborn streak suddenly showing itself.
    'Oh, you won't, won't you?' said the yellow tom softly, and gave a low growl. Then, before Peter's eyes, he began to swell as though somebody were pumping him up with a bicycle pump. Larger and larger he grew, all lumpy, crooked and out of plumb.
    Peter continued to protest: 'I won't go. There's