ell, if you've got the jumpin' fit," says I, "jump ahead; but if you
can hold yourself in a minute, I'll bring a step-ladder."

"Then hurry, please hurry!" says she, and starts to climb up on the edge
of the balcony.

It wa'n't more'n six feet to the turf anyway, and it wouldn't have been
any killing matter if she had jumped, less'n she'd landed on her neck;
but she was as looney as if she'd been standin' on top of the Flatiron
Buildin'. Bein' as how I'd forgot to bring a step-ladder with me, I
chases around after something she could come down on. The moon wasn't
shinin' very bright though, and there didn't seem to be any boxes or
barrels lyin' around loose, so I wasn't makin' much headway. But after
awhile I gets hold of something that was the very ticket. It was one of
these wooden stands for flower-pots. I lugs that over and sets it up
under the window.

"Now if you'll just slide down onto that easy," says I, "your life is
saved."

She looks at it once, and begins to flop her arms and take on again. "I
never can do it, I know I can't!" says she. "I'll fall, I'll fall!"

Well, it was a case of Shorty McCabe to the rescue, after all. "Coming
up!" says I, and hops on the thing, holdin' out me paws.

She didn't need any more coaxin'. She scrabbled over that balcony rail
and got a shoulder clutch on me that you couldn't have loosened with a
crowbar. I gathered in the rest of her with my left hand and steadied
myself with the other. Lucky she wasn't a heavy-weight, or that
pot-holder wouldn't have stood the strain. It creaked some as we went
down, but it held together.

"Street floor, all out!" says I, as I hit the grass.

But that didn't even get a wiggle out of her.

"It's all over," says I. "You're rescued."

Talk about your cling-stones! She was it. Never a move. I couldn't tell
whether she'd fainted, or was too scared to let go. But it was up to me
to do something. I couldn't stand there for the rest of the night
holdin' a strange lady draped the way she was, and it didn't seem to be
just the right thing to sit down to it. Besides, one of her elbows was
tryin' to puncture my right lung.

"If you're over the fire panic, I'll try and hoist you back through the
window, miss," says I.

She wasn't ready to do any conversin' then, though. She was just holdin'
onto me like I was too good a thing to let slip.

"Well, it looks to me as though we'd got to make a front entrance," says
I; "but I hope the audience'