Downton Tabby (10 page)
Authors: Chris Kelly
“I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.”
—R
UDYARD
K
IPLING, AS QUOTED BY A CHARACTER PLAYED BY
D
AN
S
TEVENS IN SOME
TV
SHOW
T
HE 1920S WOULD SEE A
stock market boom and bust in America, the rise of fascism and communism in Europe, and, worst of all, a servant shortage in England, as Robert Graves notes in his magisterial work,
Vom Kriege
. (No, that can’t be right. Let me check my notes.) I mean
The Long Week-End: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918–1939:
Any girl who had earned good wages in factories, and had come to like the regular hours, the society of other workers, and the strict but impersonal discipline, was reluctant to put herself under the personal dominion of “some old cat” . . .
So that was an issue.
At Downton, Minxy had trouble showing warmth to her kitten, surprising no cat who had ever met her, even in
passing. Lady Korat’s mother visited again, to great fanfare and diminishing returns, and other guests included American jazz musicians, Australian opera singers, and Virginia Wolf, because the class system was crumbling, and with it the old rules against stunt casting.
Boots was stopped on his way to St. Ives with seven sacks full of cats and the kidnapped Lindbergh baby (“How did that get in there? Officer, I swear I’ve never seen it before . . .”) and the Crash of ’29 gave Lord Grimalkin a perfect chance to lose his shirt again. Luckily, he had fur.
Between the wars, T. S. Eliot wrote
The Waste Land
—because he’d come to the conclusion that everything he’d ever learned was a lie and everything in the world was a sham—and
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
because, hey . . . cats!
I may not be a lion, but I am a lion’s cub, and I have a lion’s heart.
—E
LIZABETH I
If it’s silver, polish it.
If it’s furniture, dust it.
If it’s cloth, launder it.
If it’s food, boil it.
If it’s a clothes hamper, sleep in it.
If it’s the soil of a large potted plant, poop in it.
There wouldn’t be a
Downton Tabby
without Lucy Ruth Cummins, HiFi3D Jonathan Dorfman & Szymon Weglarski, Cory Godbey, Martha Schwartz, and especially Trish Todd. No real cats were forced to wear clothes for this book, although some were observed for the drawings. Don’t put clothes on your cats. (He says like he’s your boss.)
C
HRIS
K
ELLY
writes for HBO’s
Real Time with Bill Maher
. He won an Emmy for his work on Michael Moore’s
TV Nation
. He’s been an editor at
Spy and National Lampoon
, a staff writer for
Late Show with David Letterman
, head writer at
Politically Incorrect
, and a writer/producer on a half-dozen network situation comedies, some long-running and some that barely aired at all.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Chris Kelly
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition December 2013
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Cover photo-illustration by HiFi3D (Jonathan Dorfman & Szymon Weglarski)
Cover and interior design by Lucy Ruth Cummins
Interior pen-and-ink illustrations by Cory Godbey
Interior photo-illustrations by HiFi3D (Jonathan Dorfman & Szymon Weglarski)
ISBN 978-1-4767-6593-8
ISBN 978-1-4767-6594-5 (ebook)
Those Who Have Things Done for Them
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How to Argue with Lord Grimalkin About His Most Deeply Held Beliefs
