Furthermore, it was not I who let the tiger inside, so I don’t really think I should be the one who’s to blame. No, as a matter of fact, it was my uncle who actually opened the door. But of course, once the tiger WAS inside. I admit that I was the one that invited it to stay for tea. I mean, I’ve never had a tiger over for tea before and I thought this opportunity might not come again. Even still, I wasn’t sure that the tiger would accept my invitation. So when it purred a genial “yes,” I must admit that I was overjoyed.
The one weakness of tigers it seems is hospitality.
Oh, we talked about many things. That you can be sure of, but one thing the tiger kept coming back to time and time again was how certain he was that things would turn out well for Lois and Dan (my next-door neighbors who were having a bit of trouble). It seems that tigers are very sensitive to that sort of thing.
As the evening wore on, the conversation ranged far and wide. We talked about how excited we were about the upcoming year. How we much preferred the dry British humor to the wacky American style. He talked with great intelligence about literature and fine wine and fine art and opera.
When it got late, he excused himself and vanished back into the jungle. I thought nothing of it for many years, until one day when I woke up to find, my original oil paintings mauled and my collection of fine wine completely stolen and dragged mercilessly into the jungle.
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