"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.