'POOSH!'
They had the slipperiest floors in the Rue de L'Echelle, made of pieces
of wood joined together and then polished till the nap was like silk.
Léocadie, the _bonne_, did it with cloths wrapped about her feet, and
she looked too funny and chaseable skating up and down the floors.
Sometimes Philippe, Mr. Jay's servant, did it, and he plodged, that was
the difference. Léocadie ordered him about like a slave, and he obeyed
her, but he chaffed her. She was rather a little slop in her morning
blouse and her checked apron and her black frizzly hair, and when she
gave him an order he would answer gravely, '_Bien, Princesse!_' which
sent Mr. Jay into fits of laughter. Léocadie was very kind to me. She
was always holding out some little odd-and-end for me to eat, saying,
'_Tiens, Minet?_' while I liked lying on Philippe's coat, that he took
off when he worked, better than anything.
Then in the warm May days that were coming on, I used to lie in the
balcony and look through the iron lace-work and put my paw out,
and shake it about in the air. I could look down, too, and see the
wheelbarrows with bright flowers on them, and the bare-headed women
with lovely hair, and the tinkling cabs, and the drivers with their
grey beaver hats.
Auntie May got a great deal better, well enough to go into
society--French society. Mrs. Jay sometimes went with her, but not
always, and one night--a night that will long live in my memory--Auntie
May went to Madame Taine's literary party all alone.
At nine o'clock she came out of her room in her new evening cloak, and
in a lovely pink dress all sequins and beads, and went down the stairs
of the flat. I slipped out too, and went down on the train of her dress
most of the way. She ought to have held it up, of course. She got
into the cab the concierge had fetched, and having said goodbye to me
upstairs, thought no more about me, and I was left sitting alone on the
kerb.
The gutter was dirty, full of vegetables and things thrown away,
and even when they did tidy up, they only pushed the refuse under a
grating. The dirty towel the men used to stop up the hole in the sewer
with was lying near by--a stupid way of arranging it, I thought. The
noise in the street was terrific. It was the first time I had stood
there alone. The tinkly horse bells got on my nerves--horses all wear
collars in Paris. One wonders they don't spoil their ruffs. Auntie May
won't let any of her cats wear them, though for some reasons it would
be most convenient, for one would always know where the cat was at a
given moment. I longed to get in again, but the great big doors were
shut. So sooner than sit still doing nothing, I moved a little way
farther down the street, and gradually got on to what I imagined from
descriptions must be the Big Boulevard. It was a great danger, but
luckily it was dark. At the crossing there was a policeman with a stick
that he tried to keep cabs back with as they do in London, so mother
has told me, but the horses here just pushed it back rudely with their
noses, and went on and nearly ran over people.
I got across, and on the other side there were numbers of places
where They eat, and many people sitting outside at little tables
munching peanuts and drinking coffee out of glasses. They dropped
pieces of sugar into them and gave them to their children, who all
seemed to have leave to sit up and be out of doors in the night time.
Rosamond and her sisters go to bed at eight, but then they are English
children. Every moment I thought something was happening, people made
such a noise. Every now and then men ran down the street calling out
in dreadful fear; their harsh screams of terror frightened me, but
I soon discovered, by an old gentleman near me giving one man a sou
and quieting him, that these scraggy poor men were only selling their
papers. In the middle of the road the stream of carriages and cabs
rolled--rolled by till my poor head turned, and I didn't know when I
should ever cross that river of carriages and get home. I knew, having
crossed the street once, that I was bound to cross it again to get
back, but there was not a cat in the whole region from whom I could ask
the way.
I felt so lonely that I could have mewed aloud, but if I had that would
have called attention to me, and I should have been arrested by one of
the men in blue who held the _bâton_ and minded the crossing. I rubbed
myself against an old gentleman who was taking absinthe at the little
table near which I had placed myself. He looked down and only said,
'_Tiens, un chat! Rentre, mon vieux_,' which translated means, 'Hold,
a cat! Go home, old man!' which was precisely what I wanted to do, if
only he would have put me safely over the crossing. He probably thought
I belonged to the restaurant near where I was lurking.
At last the stream of carriages seemed to thin a little, and I took my
courage between my teeth and made a wild dash to get across.
I did it. The garçon called out, '_Holà! Hé!_' and some other strange
expressions of surprise, but I never minded. Keeping a stiff whisker,
although I was mortally afraid, I walked down the long street that led
southwards to my home in Rue de L'Echelle.
I knew the house by a piece of orange-peel lying in a particular place
near the door that I had noticed when Auntie May had started three
hours ago, and also by its own peculiar smell.
Every house has its special smell, over and above all the town smell,
you know. The smell of Paris is quite different from the smell of
London. It is a kind of fried-potatoes-and-garlic smell mixed together
on a hot stove-dried air--nothing solid about it, somehow. Auntie May
says it is like sweet champagne, and just as heady.
I had plenty of time to think what the air of Paris was like, for the
door stayed shut, and I stayed in the street with every prospect of
doing it till morning. I could not ring the bell and say, '_Cordon,
s'il vous plait_.' Then a thought struck me. Had Auntie May come
in yet? How could I tell? I looked about to see if she had dropped
anything--a pin, a flower, a hair-pin?
Nothing! Now, Auntie May was just the kind of person to drop something,
and I began to hope that she had not come in yet. I waited. I could
sneak in with her if I was mean, or make a clean breast of it and show
myself. I didn't know which I would do. It depended on the sort of
temper she was in. I can generally smell that.
After about an hour I heard a cab come down the street, going very
quickly. Auntie May got out and paid the man and sent him away. Then
she rang, very loudly and impatiently. I was sitting quietly beside
her, meaning her to see me. I had decided to do it that way, but I said
nothing. She noticed me at once, and spoke to me seriously:
'Oh, Loki, you villain, you darling, you naughty little cat! How
come you to be out? Mercy, when I think of what might have happened!
A valuable cat, alone in Paris at midnight! I hope at least you have
not been very far away from this door. This is a quiet sort of street,
thank goodness. Quick! Say! Set my mind at rest!'
She shook me gently and I said, 'No,' but of course she only thought I
mewed.
'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.
There was one from Mr. Fox, which I managed to get hold of and trailed
all over the room, pretending it was a mouse, and paying it back for
Mr. Fox's treatment of me. I like to be loved.
There was a long letter from Mrs. Dillon in South Africa about Admiral
Togo.
'I sometimes think he is turning into a baby,' she wrote. 'He really
is almost human, and expresses his every wish so unmistakably that
I am convinced he will actually talk some day. He is very well. His
fur comes off, but the "vet" says that is inevitable here, and that
it will come on again. He is a shocking bad sailor and hated the
sea. Nothing would induce him to look at it through a porthole
unless I held him in my arm and talked all the time to him. Then he
got a little, nervously, interested. My maid bought a wicker
basket-chair for him at Madeira, and he sat on it on deck, never
making the slightest attempt to leave it. Below he had only one
pleasure, a canary. Up to the very last he hoped that it would come
into his mouth. He felt the heat of the tropics very much, and
complained in a feeble way of being forced to travel in his
chinchilla coat and cuffs. I showed him how to lie on the floor
with his head on a book for coolness, so all the hot time he
insisted on my making this arrangement for him; he could not
somehow or other get it right for himself.
'Here at Rondebosch he is getting a little old-fashioned, having no
other cats to play with except me and my maid. He goes walks with
me, padding along on his short fat legs, with his tongue hanging
out of his mouth till he is tired, when he lies down on his back
and cries till I go and pick him up, and then have to carry him the
rest of the way. I want my maid to buy him a "pram."'
I can't remember any more. Auntie May nearly cried with pleasure at
getting this long letter from Mrs. Dillon. I wished Auntie May would
take _me_ walks. She never seemed to think of it, and I got into the
habit of taking them for myself--on the roof.
This was stopped.
'May,' said Mrs. Jay, 'when I came in to-day I heard a mew, and your
cat welcomed me into my own house from the roof, craning his silly
little neck over the gutter, like the devils of Notre Dame. Do you
think it safe? He isn't attached behind, like the gargoyles, you know.'
'Not at all safe,' said Auntie May, and, together with the hotness,
this was one of the reasons for her deciding to go home.
About a fortnight after this my basket was brought out and filled with
little bits of paper. I knew what this meant. I was not, however, put
into it till the very last minute, two days later.
'Now, you travelled little cat,' said Auntie May, 'go into your
"_sleeping_" and don't wail and distress me. It will soon be over, and
you will see your mother again.'
I knew exactly how soon it would be over; it would last just as long as
it had lasted to come here, and that was a whole day. I said nothing,
and then began the goodbyes, which were just as distressing as my
mewing would have been.
It is curious, but They do seem to have a way of caring for each other
far more than we do. Mrs. Jay and Auntie May knew each other no better
than I and Mistigris, and I never even troubled to say goodbye to her,
yet she was a nice little cat.