He saw us looking at him, and came up to us, a melancholy downcast, unprepossessing-looking man. As Aunt Pussy could only stare at him, Mark, who had spoken to him the day before, told him the lady had come to identify the bag lost on the previous afternoon. The man bowed to Aunt Pussy, and said, “Follow me, madam,” and we followed him through several departments.
“Gentlemen’s outfitting!” hissed Aunt Pussy suddenly in my ear, pointing with a trembling finger at a line of striped and tasselled pyjamas which she had avoided for many years.
Presently we came to a glass door, and the man took a key from his pocket, opened the door, and ushered us in. And there on a small table lay a bag—the bag—Aunt Pussy’s bag, with the mended handle. She groaned.
The man fixed his eyes on her and said:
“Look well at this bag, madam. Do you recognise it as yours?”
“I do,” said Aunt Pussy, as inaudibly as a bride at the altar.
He then asked her what the contents were, and she described them categorically. He then took up the bag, put it into her hand, and said, “Look well at the contents, madam, and verify that they are all there.”
They were all there. As Aunt Pussy was too paralysed to utter another word I said so for her.
There was a long pause. The man looked searchingly from one to the other of us, and sighed. If he expected a tip he was disappointed. After a moment he moved towards Aunt Pussy to open the door behind her. As he did so she gave a faint scream, and subsided on the floor in a swoon.
When we had resuscitated and conveyed her home, and Mark had gone, she said in a hollow voice: