'll run away somewhere I'll give you ten
cents."

"No," said the terror, "I want to see him an' you catch that cat."

"I'll tell you what I'll do," suggested Brown, inspired. "I'll give you a
dollar if you'll help us catch the cat."

"You're on!" said the boy, briskly. "What'll I do? Touch her up with this
bean-shooter?"

"No; put that thing into your pocket!" exclaimed Brown, sharply. "Now
climb across to Sixty-fourth Street and stand by that iron railing so
that the cat can't bolt out into the street, and," he added, wrapping a
dollar bill around a rusty nail and tossing it across the fence, "here's
what's coming to you."

The small boy scrambled over nimbly, ran squirrel-like across the
transverse fence, dipped, swarmed over the iron railing and stood on
guard.

"Say, mister," he said, "if the cat starts this way you and your girl
start a hollerin' like----"

"All right," interrupted Brown, and turned toward the vision of
loveliness and distress which was now standing on the top of her own back
fence holding fast to a wistaria trellis and flattering Clarence with low
and honeyed appeals.

The cat, however, was either too stupid or too confused to respond; he
gazed blankly at his mistress, and when Brown began furtively edging his
way toward him Clarence arose, stood a second in alert indecision, then
began to back away.

"We've got him between us!" called out Brown. "If you'll stand ready to
seize him when I drive him----"

There was a wild scurry, a rush, a leap, frantic clawing for foothold.

"Now, Miss Betty! Quick!" cried Brown. "Don't let him pass you."

She spread her skirts, but the shameless Clarence rushed headlong between
the most delicately ornamental pair of ankles in Manhattan.

"Oh-h!" cried the girl in soft despair, and made a futile clutch; but she
could not arrest the flight of Clarence, she merely upset him, turning
him for an instant into a furry pinwheel, whirling through mid-air,
landing in her yard, rebounding like a rubber ball, and disappearing,
with one flying leap, into a narrow opening in the basement masonry.

"Where is he?" asked Brown, precariously balanced on the next fence.

"Do you know," she said, "this is becoming positively ghastly. He's
bolted into our cellar."

"Why, that's all right, isn't it?" asked Brown. "All you have to do is to
go inside, descend to the cellar, and light the gas."

"There's no gas."

"You have electric light?"

"Yes, but it's turned