Once upon a time there was a man called Humphrey who owned three cats, and gave them food to eat each day.
         As if they were grateful for this, the cats in return gave Humphrey food to eat every day, in the shape of the entrails of dead mice and shrews. These they carefully separated from the rest of the animal, which they ate.
         Humphrey was rather touched by the offerings left by the cats on the kitchen floor, although his wife hated them and had never gone into the kitchen bare-footed again after the day she had stepped in one of them and found herself walking with mouse giblets between her bare toes.
         ‘Yes, but cats are hunting animals by nature,’ explained Humphrey. ‘It's in their blood to go out and catch small rodents. That's what they do and we should respect them for it. If it wasn't for our cats, we would have mice all over the house.’
         ‘Is it such a very bad thing to have mice in a house?’ said Humphrey's wife.
         ‘Oh, come ON!’ said Humphrey. ‘Mice steal food and gnaw through electrical wires and leave droppings everywhere! Is that what you want?’
         ‘Isn't it in their nature to do so?’ said his wife. ‘Isn't it in a mouse's blood to gnaw through wires and eat food and leave droppings? Shouldn't we respect them for it?’
         Humphrey felt he was being drawn into a logical cul-de-sac out of which he might come the loser, and withdrew into a dignified silence, or, as women say, went into a sulk. But not long after this, there was a report on the radio that too much wild life in Britain was being killed by cats - voles, shrews, slow worms and so on.
         ‘I think we should get rid of our cats,’ said Humphrey's wife. ‘They are mass murderers.’
         ‘No, just hunters,’ said Humphrey.
         ‘Serial killers.’
         ‘Logical links in the food chain...’
         Humphrey's three cats listened to this conversation with some interest, as it seemed directly to bear on their fate.
         ‘The man likes us,’ said No 1, ‘even though he never eats up the mouse giblets we leave for him.’
         ‘You only leave them because you hate offal yourself,’ said No 2.
         ‘The woman doesn't like us,’ said No 3. ‘She wants to get rid of us.’
         ‘If you aren't prepared to eat the intestines of a mouse, why should the man eat them?’ said No 2.
         ‘Listen!’ said No 3. ‘You're not listening! The woman wants to get rid of us! If we go on killing shrews and voles and leaving the entrails in the kitchen, she will get rid of us.’
         ‘Well, in that case,’ said No 1, ‘why don't we go on killing birds and rodents, but leave the remains outside the garden where they won't find them? Even bury them?’
         ‘Because it's not in our nature to do that,’ said No 2. ‘It's in our nature to hunt wild life and leave the bodies around. But BURY them? That's dog and squirrel work! It's in dogs' nature to bury bones - and now it seems to be in mankind's nature to go all soppy over wild life and see cats as the big threat.’
         ‘It didn't use to be,’ said No 3. ‘There was a time when man was a hunter too, like us. He more or less killed everything he could see in Africa, and kept the bodies for fun. Trophies, he called them. But now he is equally fanatical about not slaughtering things. I wish he'd make his mind up.’
         ‘The one thing that hasn't changed over the years with men is that they have always thought of cats and dogs as domestic pets,’ said No 1. ‘Without man, dogs and cats might be nearly extinct. So really, it's man who is to blame for keeping cats going and thus threatening vole and shrew and slow worm numbers.’
         ‘And mouse numbers,’ said No 2. ‘We threaten mouse numbers as well, remember.’
         ‘Yes, but man never sees that as a threat, does he? He likes shrews so we're a threat to shrews. He doesn't like mice so we are not a threat to mice. Anyway, it's all man's fault for having cats.’
         ‘So if we get rid of our owners, it'll be all right?’ said No 3 slowly.
         ‘Yes,’ said No 1.
         ‘No,’ said No 2. ‘If we got rid of our owners, we'd lose our home and free meals.’
         And if we don't get rid of them, she'll get rid of us!’ said
No 3.

         At this point, human beings would have set up a commission to mount an inquiry to produce a report, which would then be ignored. But being cats, these three got bored with the discussion and all went to sleep. It was, after all, in their nature