'Your sweet little mew quite disarms me. Oh, but you _have_ given me a fright--an awful fright!' I asked her if she had enjoyed herself? 'Why a fright, do you say? Anybody might have run off with you and made a boa of you. They wouldn't have made mincemeat, however, for you are a valuable cat, and they could see that at a glance, though you are English. They would have sold you into slavery. Well, people are honester than I thought! But perhaps nobody has passed this way? _Dis, mon chou!_' She had got so French that she called me a cabbage. She squeezed me again, and I tried to remind her that nobody had answered that bell, and that her cloak was open, and it wasn't even a piece of whole fur, for it missed her neck out. 'Yes, you may well mew, for you are a really naughty little cat, and have wrung your poor mistress's heart. Why don't they open that door? How long have we been standing here? Come under my cloak.' 'I wish you would fasten it,' I said. 'You are very conversational, Loki, to-night. I begin to think you have had adventures. I'll ring again. Conf--bother that concierge! Lazy creature! I'll ring the house down if he doesn't come soon. Well, well, we must possess our little souls in patience, Loki, you and I. Isn't it funny, standing out here in a strange town all alone at twelve o'clock at night, Loki? Awfully queer, and such a queer party I have been to. We drank punch in long glasses, and ate plum-cake and spoiled our gloves. When _will_ this man answer the bell and open the door?' She rang again. We both listened. 'I believe we shall have to make up a bed on the stones,' she said. 'I am beginning to get cross. Perhaps we can get the concierge dismissed to-morrow. Yes, we'll do that, anyhow.' [Illustration: 'I BELIEVE WE SHALL HAVE TO MAKE UP A BED ON THE STONES,' SHE SAID.] There was a man coming down the street in a rough black frieze cape and a black tie, whose ends floated out in the breeze. If ever I saw a Frenchman he was one, young too. Yet as he went by he said, very clearly and distinctly in English: 'Poosh!' And Auntie May did push, hard. That was it. The door was open all the time! I believe the concierge had opened it when we first rang and gone to sleep again. But all I can say is we heard no click, and that is what Auntie May said to Mrs. Jay next morning. 'I didn't think that literary parties could be so exciting!' said Mrs. Jay. Next morning a whole heap of letters came by the post. Auntie May read bits of them aloud to Mrs. Jay, and I heard them between my mouthfuls of bread and milk. There was one from Beatrice saying that she supposed Auntie May wasn't going to stay in Paris much longer, it must be getting so hot; she supposed she wouldn't mind a few little commissions, and out came a list as long as Auntie May's arm.