Part 36

She held up one finger; Brown's heart leaped. Was that some cabalistic sign which he ought to recognize? But she was merely signaling the conductor, who promptly pulled the bell and lifted her basket for her when she got off.

She thanked him; Brown heard her, and the crystalline voice began to ring in little bell-like echoes all through his ears, stirring endless little mysteries of memory.

Brown also got off; his legs struck up a walk of their own volition, carrying him across the street, hoisting him into a north-bound Lexington Avenue car, and landing him in a seat behind the one where she had installed herself and her wicker basket.

She seemed to be having some difficulty with the wicker basket; beseeching six-toed paws were thrust out persistently; soft meows pleaded for the right of liberty and pursuit of feline happiness. Several passengers smiled.

Trouble increased as the car whizzed northward; the meows became wilder; mad scrambles agitated the basket; the lid bobbed and creaked; the girl turned a vivid pink and, bending close over the basket, attempted to soothe its enervated inmate.

In the forties she managed to control the situation; in the fifties a frantic rush from within burst a string that fastened the basket lid, but the girl held it down with energy.

In the sixties a tempest broke loose in the basket; harrowing yowls pierced the atmosphere; the girl, crimson with embarrassment and distress, signaled the conductor at Sixty-fourth Street and descended, clinging valiantly to a basket which apparently contained a pack of firecrackers in process of explosion.

A classical heroine in dire distress invariably exclaims aloud: "Will no one aid me?" Brown, whose automatic legs had compelled him to follow, instinctively awaited some similar appeal.

It came unexpectedly; the kicking basket escaped from her arms, the lid burst open, and an extraordinarily large, healthy and indignant cat flew out, tail as big as a duster, and fled east on Sixty-fourth Street.

The girl in the summer gown and white straw hat ran after the cat. Brown's legs ran, too.

There was, and is, between the house on the northeast corner of Sixty- fourth Street and Lexington Avenue and the next house on Sixty-fourth, an open space guarded by an iron railing; through this the cat darted, fur on end, and, with a flying leap, took to the back fences.

"Oh!" gasped the girl.

Then Brown's legs did an extraordinary thing--they began to scramble and kick and shin up the iron railing, hoisting Brown over; and Brown's voice, pleasant, calm, reassuring, was busy, too: "If you will look out for my suitcase I think I can recover your cat.... It will give me great pleasure to recover your cat. I shall be very glad to have, the opportunity of recovering--puff--puff--your--puff--puff--c-cat!" And he dropped inside the iron railing and paused to recover his breath.

The girl came up to the railing and gazed anxiously through at the corner of the only back fence she could perceive.

"What a perfectly dreadful thing to happen!" she said in a voice not very steady. "It is exceedingly nice of you to help me catch Clarence. He is quite beside himself, poor lamb! You see, he has never before been in the city. I--I shall be distressed beyond m-measure if he is lost."

"He went over those fences," said Brown, breathing faster. "I think I'd better go after him."

"Oh--would you mind? I'd be so very grateful. It seems so much to ask of you."

"I'll do it," said Brown, firmly. "Every boy in New York has climbed back fences, and I'm only thirty."

"It is most kind of you; but--but I don't know whether you could possibly get him to come to you. Clarence is timid with strangers."

Brown had already clambered on to the wooden fence. He balanced himself there, astride. Whitewash liberally decorated coat and trousers.

"I see him," he said.

"W-what is he doing?"

"Squatting on a trellis three back yards away." And Brown lifted a blandishing voice: "Here, Clarence--Clarence--Clarence! Here, kitty-- kitty--kitty! Good pussy! Nice Clarence!"

"Does he come?" inquired the girl, peering wistfully through the railing.

"He does not," said Brown. "Perhaps you had better call."

"Here, puss--puss--puss--puss!" she began gently in that fascinating, crystalline voice which seemed to set tiny silvery chimes ringing in Brown's ears: "Here, Clarence, darling--Betty's own little kitty-cat!"

"If he doesn't come to that," thought Brown, "he is a brute." And aloud: "If you could only let him see you; he sits there blinking at me."

"Do you think he'd come if he saw me?"