ut the bottle was too nearly empty to carry
far. Then I attempted to lure her nearer, calling her in French,
German, and English, but she did not stir. I did not know the Flemish
for 'cat.'

"'She's got a name, and won't come,' I thought. 'Now, what under the
sun can I call her?'

"'Aunty,' suggested the man at the next table.

"I sat perfectly still. Could that man have answered my thoughts?--for
I had not spoken aloud. Of course not--it was a coincidence--but a
very disgusting one.

"'Aunty,' I repeated, mechanically, 'aunty, aunty--good gracious, how
horribly human that cat looks!' Then, somehow or other, Shakespeare's
words crept into my head and I found myself repeating: 'The soul of my
grandam might haply inhabit a bird; the soul of--nonsense!' I
growled--'it isn't printed correctly! One might possibly say, speaking
in poetical metaphor, that the soul of a bird might haply inhabit
one's grandam--' I stopped short, flushing painfully. 'What awful
rot!' I murmured, and lighted another cigar. The cat was still
staring; the cigar went out. I grew more and more nervous. 'What rot!'
I repeated. 'Pythagoras must have been an ass, but I do believe there
are plenty of asses alive to-day who swallow that sort of thing.'

"'Who knows?' sighed the man at the next table, and I sprang to my
feet and wheeled about. But I only caught a glimpse of a pair of
frayed coat-tails and a bald head vanishing into the dining-room. I
sat down again, thoroughly indignant. A moment later the cat got up
and went away.

XXIII

"Daylight was fading in the city of Antwerp. Down into the sea sank
the sun, tinting the vast horizon with flakes of crimson, and touching
with rich deep undertones the tossing waters of the Scheldt. Its glow
fell like a rosy mantle over red-tiled roofs and meadows; and through
the haze the spires of twenty churches pierced the air like sharp,
gilded flames. To the west and south the green plains, over which the
Spanish armies tramped so long ago, stretched away until they met the
sky; the enchantment of the after-glow had turned old Antwerp into
fairy-land; and sea and sky and plain were beautiful and vague as the
night-mists floating in the moats below.

"Along the sea-wall from the Rubens Gate all Antwerp strolled, and
chattered, and flirted, and sipped their Flemish wines from slender
Flemish glasses, or gossiped over krugs of foaming beer.

"From the Scheldt came the cries of sailors, the creaking