"Here I am," he thought, "awake, perfectly sane, absolutely respectable.
Why should a foolish terror of convention prevent me from asking that
girl whether she knows anything which might throw some light on this most
interesting mental phenomenon?... I'll do it."

The girl turned her head slightly; speech and the politely perfunctory
smile froze on his lips.

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