The Green Mouse Part 19

"Well, then--there's a cat in that basket."

"A--what?"

"A cat."

"How do you know?"

"I don't know how I know, but there's a big, gray cat in that basket."

"Why a _gray_ one?"

"I can't tell, but it _is_ gray, and it has six toes on every foot."

Smith truly felt that he was now being trifled with.

"Brown," he said, trying to speak civilly, "if anybody in the five boroughs had come to me with affidavits and told me yesterday how you were going to behave this morning----"

His voice, rising unconsciously as the realization of his outrageous wrongs dawned upon him, rang out above the rattle and grinding of the car, and the girl turned abruptly and looked straight at him and then at Brown.

The pure, fearless beauty of the gaze, the violet eyes widening a little in surprise, silenced both young men.

She inspected Brown for an instant, then turned serenely to her calm contemplation of the crowded street once more. Yet her dainty, close-set ears looked as though they were listening.

The young men gazed at one another.

"That girl is well bred," said Smith in a low, agitated voice. "You--you wouldn't think of venturing to speak to her!"

"I'm obliged to, I tell you! This all happened before. I recognize everything as it occurs.... Even to your making a general nuisance of yourself."

Smith straightened up.

"I'm going to push you forcibly from this car. Do you remember _that_ incident?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The lid of the basket tilted a little. Then a plaintive voice said 'Meow-w'."]

"No," said Brown with conviction, "that incident did not happen. You only threatened to do it. I remember now."

In spite of himself Smith felt a slight chill creep up over his neck and inconvenience his spine.

He said, deeply agitated: "What a terrible position for me to be in--with a friend suddenly gone mad in the streets of New York and running after a basket containing what he believes to be a cat. A _Cat!_ Good----"

Brown gripped his arm. "Watch it!" he breathed.

The lid of the basket tilted a little, between lid and rim a soft, furry, six-toed gray paw was thrust out. Then a plaintive voice said, "Meow-w!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

X

THE LID OFF

_An Alliance, Offensive, Defensive, and Back-Fensive_

Smith, petrified, looked blankly at the paw.

For a while he remained stupidly incapable of speech or movement, then, as though arousing from a bad dream:

"What are you going to do, anyway?" he asked with an effort. "This car is bound to stop sometime, I suppose, and--and then what?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do. Whatever I do will be the thing that ought to happen to me, to that cat and to that girl--that is the thing which is destined to happen. That's all I know about it."

His friend pa.s.sed an unsteady hand across his brow.

"This whole proceeding is becoming a nightmare," he said unsteadily. "Am I awake? Is this Forty-second Street? Hold up some fingers, Brown, and let me guess how many you hold up, and if I guess wrong I'm home in bed asleep and the whole thing is off."

Beekman Brown patted his friend on the shoulder.

"You take a cab, Smithy, and go somewhere. And if I don't come go on alone to the Carringtons'.... You don't mind going on and fixing things up with the Carringtons, do you?"

"Brown, _do_ you believe that The Green Mouse Society has got hold of you? _Do_ you?"

"I don't know and don't care.... Smith, I ask you plainly, did you ever before see such a perfectly beautiful girl as that one is?"

"Beekman, do you believe anything queer is going to result? You don't suppose _she_ has anything to do with this extraordinary freak of yours?"

"Anything to do with it? How?"

"I mean," he sank his voice to hoa.r.s.er depths, "how do you know but that this girl, who pretends to pay no attention to us, _might_ be a--a--one of those clever, professional mesmerists who force you to follow 'em, and get you into their power, and exhibit you, and make you eat raw potatoes and tallow candles and tacks before an audience."

He peeped furtively at Brown, who did not appear uneasy.

"All I'm afraid of," added Smith, sullenly, "is that you'll get yourself into vaudeville or the patrol wagon."

He waited, but Brown made no reply.

"Oh, very well," he said, coldly. "I'll take a cab back to the boat."

No observation from Brown.

"So, _good_-by, old fellow"--with some emotion.

"Good-by," said Beekman Brown, absently.

In fact, he did not even notice when his thoroughly offended partner left the car, so intent was he in following the subtly thrilling train of thought which tantalized him, mocked him, led him nowhere, yet always lured him to fresh endeavor of memory. _Where_ had all this occurred before? When? What was going to happen next--happen inexorably, as it had once happened, or as it once should have happened, in some dim, bygone age when he and that basket and that cat and this same hauntingly lovely girl existed together on earth--or perhaps upon some planet, swimming far out beyond the ken of men with telescopes?