The cat turned on. the stairs and made an angry spitting noise. It might have been at Pongo and Missis but then again, it might not.

I want you to hear my new motor horn,€ said Cruella as they all went down the front-door steps. It’s the loudest horn in England.

She pushed past the chauffeur and sounded the horn herself, making it last a long time. Pongo and Missis were nearly deafened.

Lovely, lovely dogs,€ Cruella said to them as she got into the striped black-and-white car. You’d go so well with my car and my black-and-white hair.€

Then the chauffeur spread a sable rug over the de Vils' knees and drove the striped car away.

That car looks like a moving Zebra Crossing,€ said Mr. Dearly. Was your friend’s hair black-and-white when she was at school?€

She was no friend of mine, I was scared of her, said Mrs. Dearly. Yes, her hair was just the same. She had one white plait and one black.€

Mr. Dearly thought how lucky he was to be married to Mrs. Dearly and not to Cruella de Vil. He felt sorry for her husband. Pongo and Missis felt sorry for her white cat.

The golden sunset had gone now, and the blue twilight had come. The park was nearly empty, and a park-keeper was calling, All out, all out!€ in a far away voice. There was a faint scent of hay from the sun-scorched lawns, and a weedy, watery smell from the lake. All the houses on the Outer Circle that had been turned into government offices were now closed for the night. No light shone in their windows. But the Dearlys could see welcoming lights in their own windows. And soon Pongo and Missis sniffed an exquisite smell of dinner. The Dearlys liked it too.

They all paused to look down through the iron railings at the kitchen. Although it was in the basement, this was not at all a dark kitchen. It had a door and two large windows opening onto one of the narrow paved yards which are so often found in front of old London houses. The correct name for these little basement yards is the area.€ A narrow flight of steps led up from the area to the street.

The Dearlys and the dogs thought how very nice their brightly lit kitchen looked. It had white walls, red linoleum, and a dresser on which was blue-spotted china. There was a new-fashioned electric stove for the cooking, and an old-fashioned kitchen fire to keep the Nannies happy. Nanny Cook was basting something in the oven, while Nanny Butler stacked plates on the lift which would take them up through the dining-room floor as if delivering the Demon King in a pantomime. Near the fire were two cushioned dog-baskets. And already two superb dinners, in shining bowls, were waiting for Pongo and Missis.