"The rats are bad enough," said Miss Merle Merryweather. "But look how he uses up the cats. He's had three die on him in the last two weeks to my certain knowledge. They're only alley-cats, but they've got feelings. It's that boxing match that does for them."The boxing match, sure always of a great hand from the audience, invariably concluded Duckworth's turn. Two cats, with small boxing-gloves, were put on a table for a friendly bout.
Naturally, the cats that performed with the rats were too cowed for this. It was the fresh cats he used, the ones with spunk and spirit . . . until they lost all spunk and spirit or sickened and died. To the audience it was a side-splitting, playful encounter between four-legged creatures who thus displayed a ridiculous resemblance to superior, two-legged man. But it was not playful to the cats. They were always excited into starting a real fight with each other off stage just before they were brought on. In the blows they struck were anger and pain and bewilderment and fear. And the gloves just would come off, so that they were ripping and tearing at each other, biting as well as making the fur fly, like furies, when the curtain went down. In the eyes of the audience this apparent impromptu was always the ultimate scream, and the laughter and applause would compel the curtain up again to reveal Duckworth and an assistant stage-hand, as if caught by surprise, fanning the two belligerents with towels.