"I came into the world like everything else that is born, willy-nilly." So the wise old housecat Foudini begins the delightful story of his life. It is the tale of his orphaned kittenhood; of how he was rescued, cowering and spitting and hissing, from a damp city basement and lured into the lives of the couple he came to call Warm and Pest ("All cats like to make up strange names for things").

It is the story of how Warm and Pest became "his" people ("Human beings must be excellent mousers; they have such patience"); of how he learned to tolerate and then to love "his" dog, Sam; and of his adventures at Cold House in the city and Mouse House in the country (he prefers Mouse House, for obvious reasons). With feline equanimity, he tells how he was saved from a racing, swollen river; of how he lost the most unlikely and dearest friend he had; and of how he gained a cat family of his own. And he regales us with news of the ghost cats who visit him in his dreams - the cats of Cleopatra and Freud among them - bringing him their ancient cat wisdom, which Foudini tries, none too successfully at first, to impart to Grace, the sleek and beautiful gray country cat new to the household.

As Foudini sees it, Grace is desperately in need of his guidance, but being young and willful, she has other doings on her mind ...