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 cat, where her paws were held fast in the varnish.

In a little while the varnish had softened, and Mr. Bobbsey could lift Snoop up and hand her to his wife.  Then he took up the board, and washed from Snoop’s paws what remained of the varnish.  She was all right now, and purred happily as Flossie and Freddie took turns holding her.

“But the floor is spoiled—­or that part is where you poured the turpentine,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

“The painter will varnish that part over when he comes in the morning,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “Then we must keep Snoop out of the way until it dries.”

And this was done.  The floor was gone over again with the varnish brush, and the marks of Snoop’s paws did not show.  Nor did the cat again go into the parlor until the floor was hard and dry.

“Mother,” asked Nan one day, about a week after Snoop had been stuck fast in the varnish, “may I have a little party?”

“A party, Nan?”

“Yes, just a few boys and girls from my class in school.  The parlor looks so nice now, with the new floor, that I’d like to give a party.  May I?”