the cab, leaning on his broom. After a pause he said in a rather
strange voice that Donna Clementina was certainly in, but that he
could not tell whether she were awake or not.

"Please find out," answered the Baroness, with impatience. "I am
waiting," she added with an indescribable accent of annoyance and
surprise, as if she had never been kept waiting before, in all the
fifty years of her more or less fashionable life.

There were speaking-tubes in the porter's lodge, communicating with
each floor of the great Conti palace, but the porter did not move.

"I cannot go upstairs and leave the door," he said.

"You can speak to the servant through the tube, I suppose!"

The porter slowly shook his massive head, and his long grey beard
wagged from side to side.

"There are no servants upstairs," he said. "There is only the family."

"No servants? Are you crazy?"

"Oh, no!" answered the man meditatively. "I do not think I am mad. The
servants all went away last night after dinner, with their belongings.
There were only sixteen left, men and women, for I counted them."

"Do you mean to say--" The Baroness stopped in the middle of her
question, staring in amazement.