"i said, i'm hungry"

thanks archive.org (PD)

From Percy J. Billinghurst's charming 1901 collection, A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals, comes this tale and illustration of a hungry, crafty puss.

Anecdote XV.

The Dinner-Bell.

It is customary in large boarding-houses to announce the dinner-hour by the sound of a bell. A cat belonging to one of these houses always hastened to the hall on hearing the bell, to get its accustomed meal; but it happened one day that she was shut up in a chamber, and it was in vain for her that the bell had sounded. Some hours after, having been released from her confinement, she hastened to the hall, but found nothing left for her. The cat thus disappointed got to the bell, and sounding it, endeavoured to summon the family to a second dinner, in which she doubted not to participate.

-- from Billinghurst, Percy J.  Anecdotes of Animals. London, New York: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1901, pp. 30-31