Number two, and he gravely held up a second finger: 

Always before when this idea had come to bother him it had faded after a moment or two, leaving him merely uneasy and dissatisfied.

This time it persisted—­intruding, annoying, exasperating him in his efforts to remember things which he could not recollect.

Number three, and he held up a third finger: 

He had begun to remember!  As soon as he or Smith said or did anything he recollected having said or done it sometime, somewhere, or recollected that he ought to have.

Number four—­four fingers in air, stiff, determined digits: 

He had not only, by a violent concentration of his memory, succeeded in recognizing the things said and done as having been said and done before, but suddenly he became aware that he was going to be able to foretell, vaguely, certain incidents that were yet to occur—­like the prophesied advent of the cherry-colored car and the hat, gown, and wicker basket.

He now had four fingers in the air; he examined them seriously, and then stuck up the fifth.

“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.