" Brooding over this instance of misplaced fancy, Mr Datchery was conducted into a large and airy study on the right-hand side of the hall, and while Colonel Babington fiddled with a tantalus, sat contemplating the cat Lavender, which had changed its mind and followed them in, and was now distractedly perambulating the furniture. "

― Edmund Crispin , The Long Divorce (Gervase Fen, #8)