Arnold is a handsome boy!
And real men love cats!
I have been reading the Carl Sandburg biography of Abraham Lincoln, and one of the things he mentions in his book is that Abraham Lincoln, loved cats.
They said any time he went somewhere, cats seemed to gravitate to him, and would put them in his lap and talk to them.
One touching episode, near the end of the war when Lincoln was in a small town on the outskirts of Petersburg on his way to Richmond, he was touring the ruins of the town and heard some kittens mewing.
There was no mother cat around and Lincoln picked up one of them and said (I have to paraphrase) “What are you and your brothers and sisters doing here all alone? Where is your mother?”
When one of the onlookers said “The mother was killed” his face took on a sadness, and he said something to the effect of “Well, if you do not survive, you will not have a mother to mourn your loss, like so many mothers have had to do in this war.”
Reading the book, I was struck with how terrible a toll the war took on him, and how he agonized over the human loss, upheaval, and destruction. It was with him always those last years.