A TORTOISE IN A FLAT:

Whatever may be said in favour of the labour-saving flat, it is certainly not the ideal place for the animal-lover. Ginger, our old cat, accepted placidly the change from a house and garden, and made herself a nest under the bath in our combined kitchen-bathroom, but there was no possible place for the dogs and it was to console me in some measure for parting with them that my husband brought home Horace. Horace was a tortoise with a friendly face to whom the three rooms provided ample space for exploring. He pottered in and out and quickly made himself at home. Ginger, after her first amazement, formed a pact of armed  neutrality with the intruder and refrained from interfering with him. 

During the summer Horace fed voraciously on bread and milk and lettuce but as winter came and the rooms grew cold at nights, meals no longer attracted him and his face assumed an anxious expression.

"He wants to hibernate," said my husband, wisely. This was a problem, but not beyond the masculine brain, From the flat-dwellers on the garden-level we begged a box of earth and made a snug little cave, lining it with hay and thatching it neatly over the top, Here we installed Horace and went to bed, well pleased with our handiwork, But we had reckoned without Ginger. She too found the nights cold, and saw no reason for retiring to her earthbox on thé balcony while one lay ready to hand in the kitchen. In the morning we found Horace lying sadly in the middle of the floor, his thatching of hay around him, while Ginger washed her paws in complete unconcern, 

We spoke severely to Ginger, we pointed her to the balcony, we reinstated Horace and thatched him in again, but all to no purpose. Next morning he lay under the bath, as completely dispossessed as ever. It was clear that for flat-dwellers the ordinary customs of garden-owners must be ignored, and we returned the box of earth with thanks. 

It is, I admit, a little disconcerting when I reach my sixth clean duster and uncover Horace beneath, but he does not stir as I hastily grab a tea-cloth and tuck him in and he can hibernate peacefully in the knowledge that the duster-drawer is far too small for the corpulent Ginger.