ed with the sticky varnish, she had become stuck fast, just
far enough inside the room so she could not be reached from the door.

"Oh, will she have to stay stuck there forever?" asked Freddie.

"Pull her loose, Mother!" begged Flossie.

"If you step on the floor to get her, you'll stick fast too," warned
Bert.

"Wait a minute, children," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I must think what is best
to do. I wish your father were home."

Snoop, seeing her friends near, must have known she would now be taken
care of, for she stopped meaouing.

CHAPTER IX

NAN BAKES A CAKE

"Come on, Snoop! Come on out!" called Flossie to the pet, black cat.

Snoop tried to raise first one paw, and then the other to come to her
little mistress, but the sticky varnish held her fast.

"You'll have to pull her loose, Mother," said Bert. "It's the only way."

"I guess she's stuck so fast that if you pulled her up you'd pull her
paws off and leave them sticking to the floor," observed Nan.

"Oh, don't do that!" begged Freddie. "We don't want a cat without any
paws."

"Don't worry, dear," his mother said. "I'll not pull Snoop's paws off.
But I wonder how I'm going to get her loose. I don't want to step in
there and make tracks with my shoes all over the newly varnished floor.

"Snoop has made some marks as it is," went on Mrs. Bobbsey, "but
perhaps the painter can go over them with his brush in the morning so
they won't show. We ought to have shut Snoop up, I suppose. Let me see
now, how can I get her loose?"

"Telephone to papa," suggested Bert. "He'll know of a way."

"I believe I will do that," Mrs. Bobbsey said.

Mr. Bobbsey had gone down to the office that evening to look over some
books and papers about his lumber business, and he had not yet come
back. In a few minutes Mrs. Bobbsey was talking to him over the
telephone.

"What's that?" cried Mr. Bobbsey. "Snoop stuck fast on the varnished
floor? I'll be home at once. It won't hurt her, but of course we must
get her loose. Don't worry, and tell the twins not to worry. I'll make
it all right."

And this is how Mr. Bobbsey did it. When he got home he found a can of
turpentine which had been left by the painter. Turpentine will soften
varnish or paint and make it thin, just as water will make paste soft.
Mr. Bobbsey laid a board on the floor from the door-sill over close to
where poor Snoop was held fast. Then he poured a little turpentine
around each of the four feet of the