"If I have it has ceased to protrude. Go and give the slipper to a footman, and don't keep some girl hopping around on one foot."
I was almost tempted to tell her who I was.
"Madam, there was a time"—I began.
"Oh, yes; thirty years ago I might have claimed the slipper; I might even have worn it,"—complacently.
"Permit me to conclude: there was a time when you held me on your knees."
"What?"
"It is indeed so."
"Confess, then, that you were properly spanked.... Heavens and earth, wherever did you come from?" she exclaimed suddenly. "Sit down beside me instantly!" And she called me by name.
It was the third time I had heard it that night. I had heard it so infrequently that I liked the sound of it.