The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

TALES OF CONSCIENCE
constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I
had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead
for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise
was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object
thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my
hand. It was a black cat - a very large one - fully
as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every
respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any
portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although
indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole
region of the breast.
Upon my touching him, he immediately arose,
purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared
delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very
creature of which I was in search. I at once offered
to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made
no claim to it - knew nothing of it - had never seen
it before.
I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go
home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany
me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping
and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the
house, it domesticated itself at once, and became
immediately a great favorite with my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it
arising within me. This was just the reverse of what
I had anticipated; but - I know not how or why it
was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted
and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred,
I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and
the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for
some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it;
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