Roving gangs of strays and escapees from fussy old lady parlors ganged up to patrol the streets, and to lie in wait for the cat meat guy to come by. And then to do what they were currently attempting, while the peddler beat at them with his hat. It did not appear to be helping, and neither did the pie-man’s yelling, which increased in volume when a large, stray dog darted into the fray, stole a pie, and ran off down the street with it.

I stopped watching the spectacle, fun as it was, and started looking for my purse. It was a gift from Gertie for whenever one of our training sessions took us outside, so that I’d have some local money on me. I found it on the top shelf of the wardrobe, with a few coins still in the bottom.

Score!

Somebody had stripped off my tattered pink silk number and put me in a thin, dove gray dressing gown. I pulled it close about the throat and scurried to the window again. I caught sight of myself in the mirror over the washstand on the way, and it wasn’t pretty. My hair was everywhere and my face was deathly pale, except for my cheeks. They were bright pink from sleep and smeared with the makeup from yesterday, or whenever the hell I’d gotten dressed for a ball I’d never made it to.

But there was no chance to fix it now. I stuck my head out the window, in time to see the cat food seller running down the road as fast as his legs could carry him, his wheelbarrow-like vehicle bump, bump, bumping over the cobblestones ahead. Most of the gang of fat felines and tough looking street dogs were in pursuit, leaving the pie man only a couple of freeloaders to chase away. Not that that was going well.

“Be off wi’you, you mangy cur. And don’t come back!”

The dog he was addressing was the same one that had already snagged a pie, and looked ready to try for another. But the cat meat guy had dropped some of his wares in his hurry to get away, and the pie man frisbeed a few of the larger scraps at the dog. It adroitly caught them in mid-air, rewarding the man with a sloppy grin and a wag from its stump of a tail. Then it trotted off, looking smug and chewing on its latest prize.

I didn’t have a prize, but I wanted one. Only I needed permission first. “Pie?” I asked my power hopefully.