'But,' she said, 'I thought you said you had to be in Paris on business, and that was why you would bring me Loki? That is what Daddy assured me you said when he told you I was pining for him.'
'I can get through the business I have to do in the morning before lunch,' said he, quite shortly, and whisked us into a cab and paid it, and told the man to drive us to Rue Chauvau La Garde.
Miss Florence Pettigrew—that was the name of the woman who kept the pension Auntie May had settled to go to—was a pretty, very little woman, and reminded me somehow of the Manx cat, she seemed shortened somewhere, somehow. She opened the door to us and I heard her greeting Auntie May, and took a dislike to her at once from the basket. I didn't like her any better when I was taken out. I'm sure she had a wooden leg.
'Well, so that's the cat. I hope he means to have good manners in my flat. I don't want my nice new furniture torn to bits, you know, Graham.'
That was Auntie May's surname, but I had never heard her called that before. Auntie May was shown to her room and asked if she would have hot water, but she sat down on the bed and cried, and cuddled me, and said, 'Well, Loki, this is life!'
I thought she didn't like life much just now, when we went in to dinner. Manxie, as I always called her, kept telling us that she had had to get fish on purpose for Auntie May, but she couldn't afford it for herself. No, what she had was three-pennyworth of meat a day for herself, and that was enough for any woman. I thought she seemed more like a Manx cat than ever, with her daily allowance of cat's meat, for she couldn't have got proper people's meat for that price!
Auntie May gave me some fish, but it was so French and buttery that I hated it. I tried to eat it, though, for Auntie May's sake, who looked so pale and ill that I longed to write home to her father about her and get her fetched home. It was unfortunate that Mr. Fox could not stand me, or else he would have come to the house and seen Manxie, and after he had seen her I am sure he wouldn't have approved of Auntie May's staying where she was so disliked. Why, Manxie even leaned across the table once, when Auntie May coughed, and said:
'I am sorry for you, Graham, but I don't like you. I don't like your eyes!'
Did anybody ever hear anything like that? The woman was mad, that was her only excuse. Poor Auntie May was miserable and her eyes were sunk in and her cheeks hollow, but I don't see that when she was paying Manxie ten francs a day that she ought to have been abused about her eyes. Hollow cheeks are better than a hollow leg any day.
She went out to déjeuner with Mr. Fox next day, telling Manxie about it, who was very cross with her for not bringing Mr. Fox to the flat.