Like the Royal Hotel where Tom finds refuge and rises to eminence, this has a certain musty sweetness--it's cheering to find that the members of The Cat Club (founded 1944), "forever friends," are forever true to character. How Tom joins their charmed circle--after being alerted to the duties and demeanor proper to a Hotel Cat by his Lady, long-time resident Mrs. Wilkins--makes a tale in which small excitements and small satisfactions loom large: Tom's rescue of Edward, "The Runaway Guest" with the nose of a poet, and his grateful reception by Edward's alert brother Checkers and friendly little sister Jenny; the arrival of tramp cats Sinbad and the Duke ("Do you come in peace?" "We spit no spit") and upstairs, of cats-with-their-masters, victims of broken boilers in the Winter of the Big Freeze. It's Jenny and her brothers who suggest a Club meeting/Stardust Ball in the old grand ballroom of the Royal, and Tom who, with an okay from the President and an invitation composed by Checkers, makes the necessary arrangements. It will be "a night to remember"--especially for Tom who is unanimously elected an honorary member. Quite up to scratch--no one could reasonably find "fault with the services of the Hotel Cat.
