When the Estate Agent Called

Some time ago, when I lived in a smaller house (you know one of those places with a tiddly back garden), my Humans decided to move to a new territory with more spacious cat facilities. This involved lots of boxes (Oh yes! We like boxes) and the piling up of things. Emptying dusty cupboards and much general untidiness (Oh yes! We like general mess even more). This brought on my 'zipping about' behaviour. After all, I was a young lad. There were oodles of interesting items to sniff around and I played Fighty Bity Danger Cat amongst all that clutter. 'Found different sleeping boxes every day to test for 'curling-up' suitability. Some were a tight squeeze giving me the not too comfortable twisted neck position. Others had a wonderful musty books odour. Mmmm, the smell of history, eeh? I liked mustiness. Anyway, it was a puss's heaven.
I wasn't particularly familiar with the home moving procedure back then, but I'm generally a friendly fellow; don't mind odd humans coming and going. I only make myself scarce if I think there's a threat to my pussonal well being. Back then, if I wanted to disappear quickly, I'd run upstairs and slip into the bed. Not on top of the bed, but underneath the quilt cover where I'd curl up and work up a nice warm fug in the dark. Nobody knew where I was.
It seems that Estate Agents are a particular breed of Human. From what I can gather, Humans groan about them muttering that they're an unavoidable, unpleasant necessity. What a strange world they live in, me thinks!
When there came a loud, confident knock on the front door accompanied by a booming, "Good Morning, Mrs Human. I'm Mr Agent from Gettum & Sellum. 'Come to value your wonderful little house," I belly slithered up those stairs and under the quilt like a highly trained SAS soldier on a covert mission.
I could hear Mr Agent's booming voice all around the house, so needed to remain on the alert even though safely under cover. Oh, horror! For soon, they were tramping up the stairs. Boom, boom. 'Lovely view!' Came the voice. Then the voices came into the room where I was hiding...and there came a prolonged silence.
"I say, Mrs Human, may I ask, and purely out of curiosity, what is that enormous lump in your bed? Is your husband disabled, or something?" After some quiet explanation from Mrs Human, there came the dreaded peals of laughter. Ooh, the shame!
You see, in my anxiety I'd forgotten the main principle of lying low was to lie low. In order to ready my escape, I was sitting bolt upright under the quilt so that from the outside I must have resembled a huge broken bedspring or some weird orthopaedic device. With my cat dignity abruptly extinguished, there was nothing for it but to make a quick exit!