Phileas J. Fogg, our aging cat, shows remarkable good sense these days. I have come to admire his grace in accepting the daily routine we have long imposed on him. Each morning he refrains from lobbying me for release from the cellar where he has spent the previous night. Respecting his elder, he allows me to eat my breakfast in peace without being bothered by any vulgar banging on the door.

When my wife comes down for this meal, however, Phil knows that he can legitimately claim release. So if Susan does not open the door promptly, he demonstrates his displeasure with management by loud banging and feeble meows. I describe Phil’s voice this way because, fortunately for us, he has never developed his vocal chords to their full potential.

You may rashly judge this self-serving on my part, but I think that consigning Phil to the cellar each evening is good for him. It gives him a sense of structure for his time, something that many of us older humanoids appreciate as well. Instead of unending sameness, Phil has times when he stays at small as well as time when he roams at large

So, even though I respect Phil’s capacity for endless contemplation, I judge that the division of hours into downstairs and upstairs time gives him a variety that adds spice to his life. He clearly finds it stimulating to have events he can look forward to, as his morning release from confinement below ground shows.

George, our next door neighbor, apparently fails to see Phil as benefiting from this gentle regime. Though something of a felinephobe himself, George once compared Phil to Florestan, the character in Beethoven’s opera Fidelio who was confined to a grim prison by an enemy until rescued by his loving wife Leonora.

Fortunately that identification never stuck; otherwise animal rights fanatics might have got after us by now.

Regular confinement may also heighten Phil’s desire for human company. We have noticed of late that, whenever we are about to go anywhere, he gets nervous. The object which sets off this anxiety more than anything else is a suitcase. He then gathers that our absence may last days and weeks, a prospect that clearly disquiets him.

In a vain attempt to delay our departure he will often perch on top of the suitcase or even crawl inside it. I suppose that this neurotic behavior can serve us as something of a tribute to our beneficent rule, though Phil has not been heard to corroborate this interpretation.

Though I hold fat-ism to be a serious human prejudice, I must report on Phil’s girth. When he walks along, his underbelly still swings as if he were carrying something inside. If he turns out to be pregnant, he will make medical history on two grounds – – age and gender. Should that happen, I will not be hesitant to bask in the publicity which will attend the revelation.

Of late, Phil has been communicating with us more. Sometimes, amazingly enough his issue is not food. It looks as if he is developing a greater affection for us as if he has come to the conclusion that all of us are in this for the duration. I feel touched by these expressions of creaturly solidarity and have come to welcome the wrapping around my lower leg of Phil’s warm body.

That Phil is a cat and not a dog also pleases me more and more. A few weeks ago I was the guest in Florida of three dogs. Marley, Miss Marple, and Sebastian all treated me remarkably well but I still felt nervous in their house the way I never feel with Phil. Those three were considerably more vocal than Phil and looked powerful enough that I would not ever want to mess with them. It was a relief to get home and face only Phil’s fangs.

You can see why I love to see the way Phil scampers down from the second floor of our house when we give the signal around ten o’clock in the evening. He knows what is expected of him and like a dutiful son, he obeys our command. Occasionally he balks at the cellar door but that hesitation serves more to demonstrate his own dignity than to start a revolution against house discipline.

We still await Phil’s development toward gerontological fullness. Will he show the gravitas which some of us still associate with old age? Or, in the manner of some human elders, will he become more feisty and threaten the good order of this household? Time will answer these questions and questions about us, too, as we move along the paths of our days.

Richard Griffin