The Cat in the Ruff
A Short Story Written by Tyson Blue(Written in Mark Twain’s library, Hartford, CT, 7/20/17)
The library was dark in the late afternoon, and quiet as well. Only the trickle of water from the small fountain in the conservatory disturbed the sepulchral silence.
A small towheaded boy wandered idly about the room, pausing before the fireplace surmounted by a tall, ornate mantel of Scottish design.
Atop the shelf of the mantel stood ten objects, all of which fascinated the boy, who was almost four.
“What are all these things, Granddad?” he asked. “Tell me about them.”
“Oh, they wouldn’t be of interest to a lad like you,” I told him. “You’d be more interested in newer things like robots and superheroes and such, not this old stuff.”
“Oh, no,” the boy replied. “I want to know about this stuff!”
I pondered a moment, then nodded.
“All right,” I said. “We have a few minutes before bedtime, and perhaps I can get through most of them before you’re off to sleep.”
I patted the seat next to me, and the boy plopped himself down.
“You see that picture there?” I pointed. It depicted a gray tortoiseshell cat wearing a ruff.
He nodded eagerly.
“That cat was once the property of the Queen of England,” I began. The boy’s eyes grew wide.
“The Queen!” he exclaimed. “You mean the lady on TV with the hat that looks like a cake?”
“No, no,” I explained. “That’s Queen Elizabeth II. This cat belonged to Elizabeth I, who lived long, long ago.”
“Why did she paint the cat?” asked the boy.
“Well, long ago, the Queen was in her castle reading a book, and—”
“What book was it?” the boy interrupted. “Did it have pictures?”
I sighed.
“It was a play by a man named Shakespeare, and it probably had many nice pictures.”
And before the boy could ask something else, I continued.
“And after a while, the Queen’s eyes grew tired and she nodded off, and the book fell flat on her lap.
“And as she slept, a big rat came out of a hole in the wall near the floor and crawled up the arm of the chair. It then crawled onto the Queen’s lap, atop the book, and glared at her with its beady red eyes. Fleas crawled in its dirty fur and over its long, scabby tail.”
The boy gasped, his eyes big as saucers.
“And just as the rat was getting ready to leap up and bite the Queen’s face, there came a great YOWWWWL and a cat—”
“The cat in the picture?” asked the boy.
“The very one,” I replied. “He leapt onto the Queen’s lap and grabbed the rat’s neck in his mouth and sunk the claws of his front paws into its body.
“The Queen jumped to her feet, emitting a most unroyal shriek.
“The cat shook the rat from side to side, breaking its vile neck. Then he laid the still-twitching body at the Queen’s feet, and bowed his head low, as if he knew he was her subject.
“Well, the Queen called her retainers into the room and pointed to the cat and its kill.
“‘This noble beast,’ she proclaimed, ‘has saved us from attack by a vicious, plague-carrying rodent. I hereby proclaim him to be Sir Percival the Lion-Hearted, and do dub him Knight. I order the royal portrait painter to produce his portrait, giving him a ruff as befits his noble rank, that all the land may know of his noble deed forevermore!’”
“And so it was done, and many, many years later, the painting was given to the man who lived in this house, and there it sits.”
“Wow,” the boy said softly. He pointed to the next object, a pale jar with birds and butterflies painted on it. “What about that?”
“That is a magic amphora from ancient Greece,” said to have the magical ability to turn water into wine.
“Rumor has it that it was the very jar which was used by Jesus of Nazareth to turn water into wine at the famous wedding feast at Cana.”
“Why didn’t he just go get some at the wine store, like Mommy does?” the boy asked.
“Well, wine stores hadn’t been invented yet,” I explained. “So magic jars came in handy, especially when one needed to provide for a wedding party of thirsty folks.”
The boy nodded thoughtfully.
“I see,” he said. “What do the pictures mean?”
“Those are things from the region where the amphora was made,” I explained. “It was put on there to remind the maker of where he was when he created it, and imbued it with its magical powers.”
“How did it get here?”
“Again, it was given to the man who lived in this house many years ago.”
The boy nodded.
“He must have been a nice man, for so many people to give him such nice things.”
“Yes, he was,” I nodded.
“What about the next thing?” He pointed to a blue jar with a long, thin neck, perched to one side of the fireplace.
“Well, that one is particularly interesting,” I said, “because that jar has a twin. See there?”
I pointed to a second jar, identical to the first, sitting at the edge of the mantel across from its twin.
“Why are there two?” asked the boy.
“I’m glad you asked me,” I replied. “Do you know the story of the Arabian Nights? Or more particularly, the story of Aladdin?”
The boy nodded eagerly.
“Well, that jar right there,” I said, pointing to the jar on my right, “is nothing less than the home to the brother of the genie in that story! What do you think about that?”
I leaned back, a satisfied grin on my face.
“Awesome!” he said. “Can I see him?”
“Not right now,” I said. “He’s on vacation in the south of France.”
“Where’s that?”
“In France.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Anyway, while traveling in the Middle East, the man who lived in this house visited a great bazaar, which is like a market—”
“Like Wegman’s?” asked the boy.
“Almost, but maybe a bit bigger, and with more and different things. A merchant in the bazaar sold him an old brass lamp which he claimed belonged to Aladdin, and upon taking it home and polishing it, the man found that it was indeed that selfsame lamp which housed the genie.
“Now the man had three wishes, and he used the first to ask for money, and lo and behold the genie gave him the gift of success at his chosen craft, enabling him to build this fine house.”
The boy looked around, marveling at the splendor around him.
“And the second wish was for happiness for himself and his wife for the rest of their days.”
“And what about the third wish, Granddad?”
“The man asked the genie what he most wished for. And the genie said that he wished for a new home, for the lamp was old and hard and smelled of rancid lamp oil.
“So the man went to a store the next day and bought both of the jars that you see there, and told the genie that he could have them both to do with as he pleased.”
“What did he do, Granddad?” The boy bounced excitedly in his seat. “What did he do?”
“He filled the first jar with soft pillows and sweet-smelling flowers, and he and his brother moved in at once. The Aladdin genie eventually moved to Las Vegas, but his brother still lives here.”
“And the other one?”
“That one he made up as a guest house for his fellow genii, and they would gather and have grand parties, with food, wine from the magic amphora, and fireworks—”
“Fireworks?”
“Yes, fireworks, right here in this library! Can you imagine it?”
“Can we see the inside, with the flowers and pillows?”
“No, no,” I said. “As I told you, the genie is not home, and you wouldn’t want to invade someone’s home when they’re there, would you?”
The boy shook his head slowly.
“I guess not.”
I nodded and pointed to the next item.
“Do you know what that is?”
The boy shook his head.
“Nope,” he said.
“Well, that is a kind of sculpture, what they call a bas-relief, of the man who lived in this house many years ago.”
The boy looked at the man’s mane of curly hair, his grand mustache, then looked at me.
“He looks kinda weird,” he concluded. “And he looks kind of like you.”
I smiled.
“Are you saying I look weird?”
The boy recovered diplomatically.
“No, no, just him.”
He thought a moment.
“What’s his story?”
“Well, there’s not much of one. He told stories that were loved by many people and he collected all these things and built this house to give them a nice home.”
The boy looked at him thoughtfully, then looked at me and smiled.
“I like him,” he said. “Do you know any of his stories?”
“I know a lot of them, and so do your daddy and your uncle, and someday, maybe you will too.”
“Will you read me one?” the boy asked.
“They’re kind of long to read to you. But maybe when you’re older you’ll enjoy reading them yourself.”
“Okay,” the boy said, and nodded. “Who’s the lady in the picture?”
He was pointing to a portrait which stood at the center of the mantel. It was a dark portrait of a woman wearing a dark coat with a fur collar. A large feathered hat sat atop her head, and she was looking off to her left at something.
“I don’t know her name,” I explained, “but she was the great love of the man who lived here many years ago.”
“Love—eeeew!!” said the boy, pulling a face.
I smiled.
“You may feel differently when you’re older,” I told him. “And then you’ll understand why he put her portrait in the place of honor, right in the center, so he could see her every night as he sat in this room, warming himself by the fire, and dreaming of things long ago.”
“Did something happen to her?” asked the boy.
“I believe so,” I said. “But I don’t know for sure, for he never spoke of it, or wrote of it in the many books he did write over many years.”
“Then how do you know what you do?”
“I just do,” I said, and moved on.
“Now that,” I said, pointing to a plain brass tray which stood next to the portrait and beside the second jar, “is the very platter upon which the wicked Salome presented the head of John the Baptist to the evil king back in ancient Bible times.”
“Eeeewww!!” the boy said with a grimace, sneaking quick glances at the suddenly sinister salver.
“Originally, the platter was made of silver, which is why people sometimes speak of serving someone’s head on a silver platter—”
“I’ve never heard that,” the boy said with certainty.
“Well, if you live long enough, I’m sure you will,” I said with confidence.
“Then why is it yellow now, if it was silver?”
“Well,” I said, “God was so angry at Salome for killing his prophet and treating him so badly that He turned it from beautiful, costly silver into cheap and ugly brass, and there it sits, given to the man who lived in this house many years ago.”
The boy nodded.
“What about the wavy lady?”
The next item was a small statue of a woman in classical Greek garb, her left arm raised over her head, the other resting on a post.
“Ah, that,” I told him. “That is a statue—statuette, really—of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world in her day, waving to the fleets of soldiers who came to rescue her from the city of Troy, back in the days of the Trojan War.”
“When was that?” the boy asked.
“Many, many, many years ago,” I said.
“When you were my age?”
I smiled.
“No, no, much longer than that. Before cars and planes and computers and TV and movies—”
“And comics?” the boy asked.
“Yes, and comics,” I said, “although comics have been written about it.”
“Was the statue given to the man?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Why?”
“Because Helen’s story was told by a great writer, and the man himself was a great writer, and the person who gave it to him thought he would appreciate it for that reason.”
The boy pondered that for a moment, then nodded.
“I guess so,” he finally said. “What about the big seashell?”
“Ahh, I thought you’d notice that,” I said. “That is the shell of a chambered nautilus, a great sea beast whose body lives in the shell, with only its two red eyes and its tentacles showing—”
“What are… tenacles?” the boy asked.
I wiggled my fingers at him.
“Long wiggly arms, like an octopus or a squid,” I explained. “It uses them to move across the ocean floor, and grab food to eat.”
“Did anyone give it to the man who lived here?”
“Yes,” I smiled. “Because he thought of stories and wrote them down in books, so that other people could read them and enjoy them for years to come.”
“But what does that have to do with the naut—the ten—with the shell?”
“Well, once the nautilus moved out of the shell, then it was full of big, empty space, and that space filled up with the story of where it had been, so that forever after, if you hold it up to your ear, you would hear the roar of the sea as the shell tells its story to anyone who wants to listen.”
“Can I hear it?” asked the boy.
“Not tonight,” I said. “But maybe the next time.”
“And what about that jar there?” he asked, pointing to a dark green jar of Japanese design, covered with enameled flowers.
“Oh, that!” I said. “That is the most important thing of all!”
“What is it?”
“That is the tip jar.”
“The what?”
“When the man who lived here many years ago had children, they would spend many evenings here in this very room, and every night he would tell them stories, and his children would insist on two things.
“The first was that the story had to be brand new every night. They would never be the same.”
“And what was the second thing?” the boy asked, stifling a yawn.
“The second thing was that he had to incorporate each and every one of the items on that mantel into the story, in order from right to left, and if he did that, then each child would place a nickel in the jar when they went off to bed, and when the jar was full, he would use the money to buy them all ice cream.
“What do you think about that?”
I glanced down. The boy was fast asleep, snoring softly.
At some point, my wife had come in from outside and was leaning in the doorway, a smile on her face.
She came over and ruffled my hair.
“You old bullshitter,” she said.
I smiled up at her.
“It’s what I do best,” I said. I got up, shuffled a bit to loosen up my gimpy knee, and scooped up the sleeping child. I put the other arm around my wife’s waist and we left the library and the house. Before I left, I looked at the bas-relief of the man who had lived here many years ago.
“Thanks for the loan of the room,” I said.
Story Tags
atmospheric dark storytelling eerie atmosphere eerie fiction folklore spooky stories storytelling vintage vibeDate Modified: 12-13-2025
