It was not until he had disappeared round the bend of the corridor that her ladyship thought it right to leave me.
I knew that she had made this little expedition in search of her maid with the sole object of seeing what the mouse did while the cat was away—a trick worthy of her lodging-house past! And I knew equally well that before I tapped at her door a little later she had examined the contents of the blue bag to make sure that I had extracted nothing. How I pity the long procession of "slaveys" who must have followed each other drearily in that lodging-house under the landlady's jurisdiction. They, poor dears, could have had no chauffeur friends to save them from daily perils, and it is n't likely that their mistress allowed such luxuries as postmen or policemen.
