‘No, ma’am.’

‘Just look out and see what he is doing, the dear.’

’He’s walking along the pavement, ma’am, sniffing at something.  And oh! there’s that curate’s dog.’

‘Yelping little brute!  I hope Rangy will give him snuff,’ said Miss Blowser.

‘He’s flown at him,’ cried the maid ambiguously, in much excitement.  ’Oh, ma’am, the gentleman has caught hold of Rangoon.  He’s got a wire mask on his face, and great thick gloves, not to be scratched.  He’s got Rangoon:  he’s putting him in a bag,’ but by this time Miss Blowser, brandishing a saucepan with a long handle, had rushed out of the kitchen, through the little garden, cannoned against Mr. Fulton, who happened to be coming in with flowers to decorate his table, knocked him against a lamp-post, opened the garden gate, and, armed and bareheaded as she was, had rushed forth.  You might have deemed that you beheld Bellona speeding to the fray.

What Miss Blowser saw was a man disappearing into a hansom, whence came the yapping of a dog.  Another cab was loitering by, empty; and this cabman had his orders.  Logan had seen to that.  To hail that cab, to leap in, to cry, ’Follow the scoundrel in front:  a sovereign if you catch him,’ was to the active Miss Blowser the work of a moment.  The man whipped up his horse, the pursuit began, ’there was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,’ Marylebone rang with the screams of female rage and distress.  Mr. Fulton, he also, leaped up and rushed in pursuit, wringing his hands.  He had no turn of speed, and stopped panting.  He only saw Miss Blowser whisk into her cab, he only heard her yells that died in the distance.  Mr. Fulton sped back into his house.  He shouted for Mary:  ‘What’s the matter with your mistress, with my cook?’ he raved.

‘Somebody’s taken her cat, sir, and is off, in a cab, and her after him.’

‘After her cat!  D—–­ her cat,’ cried Mr. Fulton.  ’My dinner will be ruined!  It is the last she shall touch in this house.  Out she packs—­pack her things, Mary; no, don’t—­do what you can in the kitchen.  I must find a cook.  Her cat!’ and with language unworthy of a drysalter Mr. Fulton clapped on his hat, and sped into the street, with a vague idea of hurrying to Fortnum and Mason’s, or some restaurant, or a friend’s house, indeed to any conceivable place where a cook might be recruited impromptu.  ‘She leaves this very day,’ he said aloud, as he all but collided with a lady, a quiet, cool-looking lady, who stopped and stared at him.

‘Oh, Miss Frere!’ said Mr. Fulton, raising his hat, with a wild gleam of hope in the trouble of his eyes, ‘I have had such a misfortune!’

‘What has happened, Mr. Fulton?’

‘Oh, ma’am, I’ve lost my cook, and me with a dinner-party on to-day.’

‘Lost your cook?  Not by death, I hope?’

‘No, ma’am, she has run away, in the very crisis, as I may call it.’