"The miscreants. Did they steal any thing?"

"Well, only a few--a few kisses."

"Hum!" said Hunston, "that was excusable. It is a sort of pilfering
which I would willingly indulge in myself."

"I dare say," answered Marietta saucily, "but I have discovered how to
use my weapons in self-defence."

"What weapons?"

"These."

She held up her ten pretty little claws. A tiny hand they were mounted
on, too.

Hunston surveyed it with the eye of a connoisseur, and looked the
admiration he wished to convey quite extravagantly enough for a vain
woman to understand his meaning.

"Exquisite," he said. "It would be flattery even to be scratched by
such models."

She laughed.

He resumed.

"And so they never go forth for fear of the brigands?"