'Ay, ay, sir,' said the man, who smelt of salt too.
This sailor planked me down somewhere, and never noticed me till there was a shouting and a trampling and a hauling and a slowing-down movement. Then the big thing that breathed in the middle stopped, and there was no noise except of voices. Quite a nice rest. The sailor came back and took me up, and put me back into the hands of Mr. Fox, who gave him something he said 'Thank ye!' for, and who then carried me up the ladder himself. I wished I could have seen his face. I am sure he was pale, though perhaps in the strong smell of salt he didn't notice the smell of me so much, and didn't feel so ill. I don't know, for, as I say, I never saw his face.
He never undid me, but sat quite close to me on the rattlingest train I ever was in, far worse than the boat. The two ladies said so. They happened to have got into the same carriage as we did, and from their subdued sort of manner I think they had both been very ill.
'I wonder how the cat got on?' said one in a very weak voice.
'I don't know, I'm sure, nor care,' said the other. Then in a lower voice she said:
'The man doesn't look very fit; he's green. I expect he has had an awful time!'
I wanted to cry out and say, 'You are quite mistaken. That is the effect of me!' but of course I couldn't do anything but scrabble about a little on the sides of the basket. They seemed to be eating an enormous luncheon! I had a parcel of fish in with me loosely done up that I could easily have got at, but I never eat on a journey. I make up for it afterwards.
We stopped twice, and people cried out things, but at last we stopped and did not go on again.
'C'est Paris?' said one of the ladies, and then I knew that she was half French, and was probably going home. I thought of Auntie May, who I knew was in Paris, but somehow I was quite surprised to hear her voice—a very thin and weak little voice—speaking to Mr. Fox on the platform.
'Oh, Mr. Fox, I never can thank you enough. And you, of all people, who hate cats so, to offer to bring me Loki. Tell me, how did you get on?'