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I relax a bit and smile, and he says, "That's better. Don't worry. We'll take care of tomcat. I suppose he got this gash in a fight?"

"Yeah."

"He been altered?"

"No."

"How old is he?"

"I don't know. He was a stray. I've had him almost a year."

All the time he's talking, the doctor is soothing Cat and looking him over.

He goes on stroking him and looks up at me.

"Well, son, one of these days he's going to get in one fight too many. Shall we alter him the same time we sew up his leg?"

So there it is.

I can't seem to answer right away.

If the doctor had argued with me, I might have said No.

But he just goes on humming and stroking.

Finally he says, "It's tough, I know. Maybe he's got a right to be a tiger. But you can't keep a tiger for a pet."

I say, "O.K."

An attendant takes Cat away, and I go sit in the waiting room, feeling sweaty and cold all over.

They tell me it'll be a couple of hours, so I go out and wander around a lot of blocks I never saw before and drink some cokes and sit and look up at the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge to Queens.

When I go back for him, Cat looks the same as ever, except for a bandage all up his right front leg.

The doctor tells me to come back Friday and he'll take out the stitches.

Mom sees me come in the door, and I guess I look pretty grim, because she says, "Cat will be all right, won't he, dear?"

"Yes." I go past her and down into my room and let Cat out of the basket and then bury my head under the pillow.

I'm not exactly ashamed of crying, but I don't want Mom to hear.

After a while I pull my head out.

Cat is lying there beside me, his eyes half open, the tip end of his tail twitching very slowly.

I rub my eyes on the back of his neck and whisper to him, "I'm sorry. Be tough, Cat, anyway, will you?"

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