Mourek was a tabby (as you may have guessed, if you know aught about naming of cats). A silver tabby, with a touch of gold, which made him look like a small tiger. I brought him home just before my 20th birthday; he was so small then that even my father, who likes animals as long as they stay off our flat, had mercy on him. He was an orphan; he had been found in a ditch. Maybe he was a fairy cat.

To be honest, Mourek was at first called Wendy. That's a female name (invented by J. M. Barrie, for Wendy). Later I perceived my mistake and re-named him (everyone called him Mourek anyway, by then).

Since Mourek spent most of his time with me and my brother, he was much like us. A mixture of the two of us. He enjoyed sleeping (like my brother). Early in the morning, he would wake everybody up (like you-know-who). Mourek usually slept in the afternoon, on the sofa. He slept on his back, with his paws stretched upwards (very unlike either of us).

Mourek loved music, especially Bach and Led Zeppelin (like both of us do). Bach always made him sleep. Led Zeppelin always made him run around the room like mad. He detested brass music.

Also, Mourek loved walnuts. He never ate any, though; he would just steal them. One by one, he kicked them off the basket, then played football with them, and then (usually) hid them somewhere. I often found a large cache of nuts somewhere in the flat, mostly under the washing machine. He would have liked to play this same game with butterflies, but they were not quite as willing as the nuts were.

Mourek was a great mouser. Unfortunately, there are no mice in our apartment. Nor had ever been, even before I brought our foundling. Instead of mice, then, he would practise on our bare feet. He always attacked me in the morning, just as I was leaning over the basin to wash my face. It always had disastrous effects.

Mourek did not like being vaccinated. He did not like being carried in a basket either. He detested pills, as all cats do. Sometimes I just had to give him pills, so I snatched him, opened his jaws and put the pill right on his tongue. Then I watched him for hours. He always pretended to have swallowed the pill. I always found it, several days later, on the bathroom floor. A friend of mine invented a method of feeding cats with pills. He mixed the pill with butter and spread it on the cat's front paws. Cats are quite helpless against this; they always lick the paws and swallow all.

Mourek died some years ago. He was killed by a car.