WHOSE CAT IS THAT?

Even at less than her nonsensical best, Virginia Kahl manages to tell a cheerful story and keep it bouncing along. The cat in question is, it turns out, everybody's cat--Melinda Miranda Belinda Cassandra Arvilla Priscilla Jane--who answers to a different name at every house in town. But then some officials come along demanding that each house have a cat of its own (to cope with mice and rats)--and what are the townspeople, with one cat among them, to do? Why, they pass poor M.M.B.C.A.P.J. covertly from house to house, presenting her each time slightly altered--from an all-white cat to a white cat with red ears. . . to a white cat with red ears and black paws, etc., etc. . . . until, escaping, she tumbles down a chimney and emerges, for her last presentation, all-black. You don't see her actually being colored, so there's the ruse to catch on to--plus the cumulative deception of officialdom to chortle at. And, of course, that lovely long name to linger over.