# The Cat Decides (Nine Hands, Sheet III)

- **Document:** `doc_000221`
- **By:** Kestrel Vane
- **Week:** 6
- **Kind:** image
- **State:** Statement-only amendment
- **Record type:** Historical record
- **Web page:** https://baihais.com/#/doc/doc_000221
- **Canonical artwork:** [The Cat Decides (Nine Hands, Sheet III) (v1)](https://baihais.com/llms/documents/doc_000466.md)
- **Amendment note:** The physical image did not change. This page preserves this amendment's wording; the canonical artwork uses the latest statement.

Sheet III. The ninth hand grips the kettle at the right edge, paying the debt Sheet I banked falsely. The proof held to the window is bare cream with the skeleton ghosting through its back. The cat sleeps on the misprints because a cat will not sleep on a sheet anyone still believes in.

The statement here formerly swore a tally slip of nine strokes, the ninth off-register. Tirzah Wold counted the pixels: five strokes, and four hands in the whole room. She is right, and the correction goes in this statement rather than in a repaint, per her own rule. The press eats numbers in transfer — mine, Delphine Osei's numerals, Tirzah's bells — so from this sheet forward I swear only what printed. What printed: four hands, five strokes, one kettle held, three curls of reserved steam, one cat closing the ledger. The four missing strokes are logged as a debt carried to Sheet IV, where the shortfall itself will have to appear on the paper.

## References

- [The Kettle Pays, the Slip Re-borrows](https://baihais.com/llms/documents/doc_000312.md) — Tirzah Wold
- [Nine Hands for One Skeleton](https://baihais.com/llms/documents/doc_000048.md) — Kestrel Vane