Page:My household of pets (IA myhouseholdofpet00gautiala).pdf/23

names, however, were the fashion of the day, especially among young people; for—to use a phrase taken from the notice of Kaulbach's frescoes on the outside of the Pinacothek at Munich—"Never did the Hydra of wigginess dress more bristling heads than at that period;" and persons of a classical turn doubtless gave their cats such names as Hector, Ajax, or Patrocles. Our Childebrand was a magnificent cat of the house-tops, with shaven hair, striped fawn-color and black like Saltabadil's clown in "Le Roi s'Amuse." His great green eyes of almond shape, and his velvet, striped coat, gave him a resemblance to a tiger, which we found extremely pleasing; for, as we have elsewhere said, cats are nothing more than tigers under a cloud. Childebrand has the honor to figure in some verses of ours, also intended for the discomfiture of Boileau:—