Charles Dickens's Cat's Paw Is In Midtown arrow Charles Dickens had his old cat's paw mounted to a letter opener for reasons we'll never understand. Gothamist In 2009, during a tour of the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library, then-curator Isaac Gewirtz asked me if I wanted to see Charles Dickens's cat's paw. Prior to this I had only associated libraries with books, maybe some maps... so for that and just so many more reasons, it took a few seconds for my brain to connect the dots — Dickens saved his dead cat's paw and through the transference of property it was now in Midtown, about to be placed before me.