"Boy" the Wandering Dog: Adventures of a Fox-Terrier

Transcriber’s Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

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The Wandering Dog

Marshall Saunders

[Illustration: I AM AN OPEN-FACED, WIRE-HAIRED FOX-TERRIER]

“Boy” The Wandering Dog

Adventures Of A Fox-Terrier

By Marshall Saunders

AUTHOR OF Beautiful Joe, Etc.

[Illustration]

New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers

* * * * *

Copyright, 1916, By George H. Doran Company

Printed In The United States Of America

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_This story is dedicated to my fellow-members of_

The American Humane Association,

_which has its headquarters in Albany, New York--an association with which I have been connected for many years, and which is carrying on a noble work for children and animals_.

Contents

Book One: My Life In The City

Chapter Page

I I Seek And Find A Friend 13

II I Lose My Friend 23

III I Find A Second Friend 37

IV My New Master 47

V An Old Friend, And An Adventure 57

VI Beanie Loses His Home 63

VII The Woman By The River 76

VIII Stanna And Napoleon 80

IX I Meet Gringo Again 90

X Master Gets Two Shocks 97

XI Napoleon And The Wasp 107

XII The Great Secret 127

XIII The Lady Gay Cat 147

XIV His Mother’S Boy 157

XV Poor Amarilla 168

XVI To Love Or Not To Love The Country 184

Book Two: My Life In The Country

XVII The Arrival Of The Twins 191

XVIII The Showman’S Dogs 202

XIX Good King Harry 214

XX The Reformed Showman 221

XXI Master Carty’S Bottle 235

XXII Mrs. Waverlee’S School 254

XXIII Master’S Brother-Boys 262

XXIV Sir Edward Medlington 275

XXV The Boy Montmorency 294

XXVI The Most Painful Event Of My Life 308

XXVII Weary Days And A Rescue 318

XXVIII The Happiest Time Of My Life 339

XXIX My Own Dear Home 348

Illustrations

I AM AN OPEN-FACED, WIRE-HAIRED FOX-TERRIER _Frontispiece_

Facing Page

“You Must Have A Drink First,” Said Gringo Hospitably 24

Beanie Was Quite Handsome Now 100

The Lady Gay Cat 148

In The House Next To Me Was A Fine Little Toy Spaniel Called Amarilla 178

King Harry, The Best Specimen Of A Bloodhound I Ever Saw 216

“I Heard Six Yelps From That Imp Yeggie” 268

Reddy O’Mare Came Trotting Round The Corner Of The Barn 310

* * * * *

Book One: My Life In The City

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I claim that we dogs are better friends to men than men are to themselves.... You, doubting man, say “No.”

Well then, give me offhand and quickly, the name of a single friend of yours who never criticises you, who lives for you only, labors for you, fights for you, would die for you, and all as a matter of course, and without thought of reward.... I note you are silent.... Well, I can name you a million dogs who, if they loved you, would live, labor, fight and die for you cheerfully and bravely, and without knowing or caring whether they were doing anything unusual or singular, or at all out of the ordinary.

BOY, The Wandering Dog.

* * * * *

The Wandering Dog

Book One: My Life In The City

Chapter I

I Seek And Find A Friend

A few months ago, I came in the course of my wanderings, to the city of New York. My! My! how the big city has grown since I was here a few years ago.

I entered it by way of a ferry-boat from Jersey City. Then I scampered up past City Hall, the Hotel de Gink, and the Tombs to the Bowery.

Of course, the first thing was to make a friend. I chose a solemn-looking bulldog, sitting round the corner from a saloon whose huge, bulging window looked like a big eye staring down the street. The dog, who was brindle in colour, and had a tremendous head, sat tight up against the wall, and was keeping a wary eye out for something, I know not what.

“Good afternoon,” I said politely, and not going too close to him.

“How d’ye do,” he said morosely. Then he looked up at the elevated.

That’s the worst of a big city. No dog that’s worth knowing cares a rap about you, unless you force yourself on his attention.

“Oh! Come off the L,” I said brusquely.

You see, I recognised at once, that he was a bluff, matter-of-fact dog who would not appreciate frills.

He did come off, and gave me a glance.

“You’re no fairy,” he said hoarsely.

“No, and I’m no crazy cur, either,” I replied. “If I were, you New York dogs would fall all over each other to entertain me. You’ve got to be either a beauty, a crank or a millionaire, to get on in this city.”

“How did you like Virginia?” he asked, with a twist of his under-jaw.

I’m a pretty self-possessed dog, but I could not help starting a bit. “How did you know I have been in Virginia?” I asked sharply.

He gave a snicker. “I know you’re from the South, for you’re shivering on this mild day, and Virginia is the nearest state south that has the exact shade of that lovely red mud sticking to your hind leg.”

“I’m not a Southern dog,” I said hastily.

“You needn’t go out of your way to get hot telling me that,” he retorted. “You haven’t the slick repose of manner of the Southern dog.”

“Well, I’m glad I’ve struck a four-legged Sherlock Holmes,” I remarked good-naturedly. “You’re just the fellow to tell me where to go to get a square meal.”

“Why don’t you trot uptown for your first feed?” he asked with a relaxing of his sour expression, for he liked being compared to the famous detective.

I smiled. There was no need to say anything, yet I said it. “Uptown’s fine, after you have an introduction. Downtown doesn’t ask so many questions.”

“Ha! Ha!” he laughed gruffly. “I like you. Come right in--I’ll share bones and tit-bits with you for a night. Follow me,” and he shuffled round the corner toward the family entrance of the saloon. There he pushed his flat skull against a door in the wall, and entered a yard about as big as a pocket handkerchief.

“Not many yards in the Bowery now,” he said hoarsely. “Happened to be a fire next door that burnt a building to the ground, and fencing in the vacant lot, gives us a place to stretch our legs.”

“Good gracious!” I said. “The city is getting darker and darker.”

“Yes,” he replied gloomily, “what with burrowing for the subways, and sky-rocketing for the elevateds, and tunnelling for the tubes, the city is getting to be as black as----”

“Yes, yes,” I said hastily. “I know--it’s a habitation not mentioned in polite dog circles.”

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked in his choked voice. “If you’re too good for your company, get out.”

“I’m not,” I said hurriedly. “I like you. You’re a regular sport.”

“I used to be,” he said, settling down on the straw with a groan, “but my joints--the rheumatiz has got me. I’m not like I used to be--Come on now, reel off your life yarn. I’ve got an hour to spare. What’s your name, and where were you born, and where are you going?”

“With your powers of observation, you ought to be able to answer all those questions for yourself,” I said demurely.

He looked me all over, with his fine dark eyes. “You haven’t got a name,” he said with a snort, “or rather you have many names. You’re a travelling dog. You were born anywhere, and you don’t know where you’re going.”

I burst into such a delighted yell of laughter that he told me to shut up, or some one might hear us.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked wonderingly. “And what’s the matter with all the dogs here? I never saw such a cowed looking set.”

“We’re listening for the cops,” he said angrily. “We’ve got a new health commissioner and he’s a----”

“Yes, yes,” I interjected hurriedly, “a dear fellow. He doesn’t understand dogs probably.”

“Understand them--he’s a fool. He says it’s the citizens first, if every dog has to go. He’s muzzled every one of us, even when led on a leash. He wants to make little old New York a dogless city.”

“I suppose it’s the old rabies scare,” I said.

“Sure--that’s it. A poor dog loses his master. He runs wild and howls. A crowd chases him, and he foams at the mouth. Then they kill him. Rabies!--rats!”

“Come, come,” I said, “we’re dogs of course, but let us look at the human point of view. There is such a disease.”

“Of course there is, but it’s as rare as a summer’s day in winter. You’ve as much chance of being struck by lightning, as of being bit by a mad dog.”

“Yet there are people killed by lightning,” I said.

He was grumbling on to himself. “The Lord made dogs--Man can’t improve ’em. He gave us our mouths free to chew grass and pick a little earth for stomach troubles. You muzzle a dog, and he gets sick and makes his master sick. The fool commissioner hurts the humans more than he helps them.”

“But he’s trying to wipe out the disease,” I said. “There isn’t much of it, and if the dogs are muzzled for a few years, it will be stamped out.”

“Yes, and we’ll have a dozen other worse diseases by that time. A muzzled dog is a menace to his master, I tell you. Let ’em supervise our health in some way. Let the government do as much for us as they do for pigs. Then we wouldn’t hear of rabies. The commissioner’s a fool--New York’s rotten anyway.”

I didn’t dare to disagree with him, for he probably would have nabbed me. “Well,” I said humbly, “I suppose we must let them come first.”

“Who come first?” he growled.

“Human beings--we’re second.”

“That’s all right,” he assented.

“Now for the sake of human beings,” I went on, “who are as closely packed together as they are in New York, there shouldn’t be many animals in with them.”

“Sure,” he said, “I’m with you there. High license to keep dogs down. They’re not happy themselves if they’re cramped.”

“But high license is against the poor man,” I said. “He could not afford to keep a dog for his children.”

“Let him go without,” said the bulldog.

“No, sir, not in these days of equality. How about having public playgrounds in crowded districts, with bird and animal pets, and a house with a caretaker to supervise the play of the children.”

“They have such playgrounds now,” he said.

“But, they haven’t any dogs, and cats and birds.”

“All right,” he said, “let ’em have ’em, if you can get the dough.”

“And furthermore,” I continued, “let the city give the superintendence of animals and birds to a person who understands them.”

The old dog was pleased now. “That’s right,” he said, “I’m with you there. Don’t boss a job you don’t understand.”

“From what you say,” I went on, “it sounds as if your commissioner was very hygienic, but he has got the bull by the tail instead of by the horns.”

The old dog roared with delight. This was something along his own line, and seeing him so good-natured, I was emboldened to say: “You spoke in quite a religious way just now, yet you keep a saloon.”

He turned on me quite fiercely. “Do you suppose there’s no religion in a saloon? I tell you there’s more good-nature and help-your-neighbourliness down here in the Bowery than there is up on Fifth Avenue. What told you to come down here for a free feed, hey?--You, a classy dog.”

“But is that religion?” I asked hesitatingly, for I didn’t want to ruffle the old fellow and lose my dinner.

“It’s the new theology,” he said more agreeably. “We don’t go to church, and sing hymns, and make roly-poly eyes, but we buck each other up. Why my mister sells the best of the Little Hell Gate Distillery stuff, yet if a fellow has too many drinks in him, he doesn’t get another one from us.”

“Well,” I said easily, “I try to be an up-to-date dog, and the latest theory is that drink takes strength away. First thing I noticed arriving here was the procession of saloons. First thing I noticed in the South was their absence. It had a kind of too-good-to-be-true look.”

“I see Russia gets on better without the sale of vodka,” said my new friend agreeably. “I guess we’d do just as well on the water-wagon, but you don’t want to be too quick in hopping on it. I often think that some of these fellows who come in here so dry and grabbing for their drinks, would be just as well off if they had a lot of good old hot coffee, the kind mother used to make; but you’d have to go slow with ’em, about putting the coffee-pot in the place of the bottle.”

“I never can understand,” I said, “why men don’t like grape-juice, and ginger ale, and beer, and all kinds of nice, cool, sloppy drinks better than fiery stuff, but that’s been tried and they hate it.”

A cunning gleam came in the old dog’s eyes. “Temperance folk don’t understand. They make their health places too clean and shiny, and a man in overalls don’t want to get in the eye of the public to take his drink and swap yarns with another pair of overalls. I’ll tell you what my mister’s doing, if you won’t let on to the dogs round here. They’re a tonguey bunch.”

“Certainly not,” I replied.

The old dog thrust his head out of his kennel, to see if any one was listening, then he went on. “It’s this way. Mister goes up town or down town to some saloon--say Jones’. Says he, ‘How much do you clean up _per annum_, Jones?’ Jones says, ‘A thousand dollars.’ Mister asks, ‘How much will you sell for?’ Jones tells him. Mister either buys him out, or goes in as a partner. Same old business goes on, same old stand, same old boss. Coffee runs in, liquor runs out, and before Jones’ pack know where they are, naughty drinks are out, and pious ones are in--and mister makes more dough.”

“Good thought,” I exclaimed. “I suppose if he’d shut up the old place, and put up a temperance sign at first, the men would have run like deer.”

“Sure,” said the old dog, “drive folks, and they run from you; coax ’em, and they feed out of your hand.”

“Is your master going to make this saloon into a good one?” I asked curiously.

“Mebbe, in time. This gives him his title of saloon-keeper.”

“Your master must be a queer man,” I said. “I’d like to see him.”

“You never saw his match,” chuckled the old dog. “He could make money out of the cobble stones.”

“Is he rich?” I enquired.

“I should smile.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m glad to hear he’s a semi-philanthropist.”

“Say--just spell that word, will you?” said my friend with mock politeness. I spelt it for him, then he said, “Were you ever a preacher’s dog?”

“Yes,” I said, “and he was a fine fellow.”

“Were you ever a saloon-keeper’s dog?” he went on with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

“Yes,” I said with a laugh, for I rejoiced to see how keen he was.

Before I left the South, I had to associate with coloured dogs for a time, and while they were kindness itself, they were not quick-witted like the white dogs.

“I guess you were an actor’s dog too, weren’t you?” continued old Gringo, for I had seen his name over his kennel.

“Yes, sir, I was.”

“And a grocer’s dog, and a milkman’s dog, and a doctor’s dog, and a postman’s dog, and a thousand ladies’ dog, and in short you’re a very----”

“Yes, yes,” I said hastily, “I’ve boxed the compass, as far as owners go.”

He burst into a hoarse laugh. “I guess the human race ain’t got any string on you.”

“Well,” I said modestly, “I know considerable about men and women.”

“And children?” he said.

“No,” I returned. “It isn’t so easy to follow them. They’re so clever, so very much more unexpectedly clever than the grown-ups.”

“It’s a doll-fashion now to kow-tow to young ones,” he said crossly. “I don’t like ’em myself, except a few.”

I suppressed a yawn. I was powerfully hungry, and so far, not a word had been said about dinner.

Suddenly my new friend trembled. “Down on your knees,” he whispered. “Waller in the straw. Keep cool----” then he filled up the kennel door with the stout, muscular breadth of his body.

Chapter II

I Lose My Friend

“Here, dog-catcher,” shrilled an impish young voice. “Here’s the kennel where the strange dog ran in. I saw him. He hadn’t a collar on.”

I scarcely dared breathe. Some Bowery imp had seen me, and reported me to the police.

“Gringo,” said an unusually resonant man’s voice, “come out. We’re going to raid your kennel.”

Gringo told me afterward he gave his master a wink. Anyway, when the deep voice sounded again, it was to a different tune.

“Officer,” it said carelessly, “do you think a strange dog would get by that face?”

“No I don’t,” said a policeman’s voice. “Run home, young one, and when you dream again, don’t call me.”

“What are you givin’ me?” asked the imp’s voice, and I knew by the twang it was a girl imp. “Gringo’s foolin’ you. He’s the soft dog in the heart spot. See me ram my fist down his throat.”

Gringo told me afterward it was as good as a play to see the cop’s face when impie ran her thin young arm in between his rat-trap jaws. Of course he had to bite her gently. There was nothing else to do.

The young one in a rage, smashed him in the face. “There’s one for you, you old bluffer. You never bit me before. Keep your old dog--I don’t care, but I’m on to him when he makes his exit.”

Gringo was shaking with laughter, when they all went away. “There’s a long feather in your cap,” he said.

“A feather I could have done without,” I replied ruefully. “It means I must skedaddle.”

“Not without your dinner,” he said kindly, and he started to shuffle toward the back door of the red brick house. “Bark twice, if the angel re-appears,” he said over his shoulder.

Thank fortune she did not, and soon Gringo returned, carrying his food dish between his huge jaws. He set the dish in front of the kennel.

“I often feed here,” he said under his breath. “Take what I chuck you. The angel has her eye at a crack in the fence.”

As he ate, he carelessly tossed into the kennel, toast scraps soaked in nice chicken gravy, and some delicious steak bones with the tenderest part of the meat clinging to them. What a good dinner I had! But I was nearly choked with thirst.

I told him about my parched throat, when he finished his dinner, and came into the kennel.

“You’ll have to wait,” he said, “till the angel folds her wings. She’s the cleverest young one on the Bowery. Usually I like her, but to-night I wish she was in----”

“Yes, yes,” I said, “in bed. Well, she’ll have to go soon.”

“Poor kid. She has no mother,” said the old dog, “and her aunt spoils her.”

That young one stayed at the fence crack for exactly one hour. She was determined to prove she was right. Before she went away, she called viciously, “I’ve got to beat it, Gringo, so tell your friend to take a starlight saunter to some other place in this burg. I’m goin’ to make this place too hot to hold him to-morrow.”

He said nothing, and I observed irritably, “Usually girls like dogs.”

“She’s wild for them,” observed Gringo. “Don’t you catch on? She’s mad because she didn’t get her own way, and because I went back on her.”

“But why did she report me, in the first place?” I asked.

“Because she was hanging round here, hoping to get a glimpse of you. I gave her a black look when she came too near, and it crossed her temper. She was bound to get even with me. I should have let her see you. Then she’d have helped you. She treats dogs like Christians.”

“Pagans for me then,” I said. “I think I’ll be going.”

“You must have a drink first,” said Gringo hospitably. “Follow me.”

He led the way to the saloon--to the tub where they washed the glasses. The water was rather fiery, but I didn’t care, for I was exceedingly thirsty. He invited me to stay till later, but I said, “No.” I wanted to get away, while there were still plenty of people in the streets.

[Illustration: “YOU MUST HAVE A DRINK FIRST,” SAID GRINGO HOSPITABLY]

“You’re leaner than I am, you can slip between folks,” he said. “I never could hide my bulk. Still you’re white--that’s dead against you. How do you get over that in your travels?”

“It’s a great handicap,” I replied, “except when I’m hiding against something light. But it’s wonderful how one can overcome disadvantages.”

“You’re smart,” he said with a snort. “I guess you’d get on anyway. Call again, some time.”

I thanked him warmly for his hospitality, scurried down the side street, then round by another winding one to the Bowery! Oh! those narrow streets! Rich people have the ugly things at the backs of their houses. These poor people had the fire-escapes and clothes lines in front. No room at the back. Poor wretches--they even hadn’t air enough. I could smell the foulness of it. No wonder they get tuberculosis of the brain.

I dashed back to the Bowery which was airy and comfortable compared with these side streets. Then I mingled with the crowd on the sidewalk.

For weeks I had been living in a small town, and this seemed like old times, for I am a city dog born and bred. I love the fields and the forests for a time, but for week in and week out, give me the pavements and lots of excitement.

“In town let me live then, In town let me die. For in truth I can’t bear the country, not I. If one must have a villa in summer to dwell, Oh! give me the sweet, shady side of Pall Mall.”

An English greyhound taught me that, one summer when I was in London, with a dearly loved mistress who afterward married a man who hated dogs.

Well, to come back to the Bowery. It was a fine night, and everybody was out but the cripples. Oh, what a forest of little feet and big feet, and pretty feet and ugly feet, and good feet and wicked feet. I trotted among them, moralising just as hard as I could.

Feet have as much character as faces. Show me a pair of shoes with the ankles in them, and I’ll tell you what kind of a headpiece crowns the structure.

For a while, I ran beside a nice little pair of stout, black, walking shoes. They had been patched, but the blacking on them shone over the patch. There were neat, darned stockings in the shoes, above them the trim circle of a serge skirt, then, on account of the crowd, I could see no more. But I knew a tidy young girl walked in those shoes, and her brother must have approved of her, for if a boy goes walking with his sister at night, she must be a pretty nice girl. They were going to a moving picture show, and were debating what they should buy for their sick mother with the ten cents that would be left. Finally they decided on grape fruit.

The boy had stocky feet encased in heavy boots that had not been bought this side of the Atlantic. I listened to the rich brogue of the boots, and found it was Irish. When the great yellow and red mouth of a moving picture palace swallowed up shoes and owners, I sidled up to another pair in the throng.

Oh! what a little witch this girl was--dirty, light-topped, French-heeled shoes, wiggly, frayed skirt edge, silly walk--she kept lopping over against her partner, a lad who was parading the damp streets in thin-soled, shoddy shoes about as substantial as paper. I couldn’t stand their idiotic talk. I left them, paddled up to Forty-second Street, and ran across it to Broadway.

I noted that many more electric lights have been put up since I was here last. The Great White Way has more than a thousand eyes now, and the pavements were rather lighter than I liked them.

I lifted my paws daintily, feeling as if I were walking on mirrors. However, the mirrors were mostly obscured--what crowds of hurrying, restless human beings surging to and fro, meeting, clashing, avoiding, closing, opening--just like waves of the sea.

I had no need to keep out of sight of the policemen here. They were fully occupied with the human waves which sometimes leaped over and by them, in spite of the warning hand that would keep them from being dashed to pieces by the street traffic.

I paused to take breath round the corner of a street.

“Say, those policemen have a hard time,” I remarked to a black cat who had come out to take the air, and was blotted against a dark spot in a wall. She wasn’t a bit afraid of me.

“Everybody has a hard time in New York,” she said gloomily, “and if one human goes under the wheels, the rest show their teeth at the cop.”

“That’s mean,” I observed.

“Everything’s mean here,” she said. “It’s a hideous place for cats.”

“I didn’t know there were any cats on Broadway,” I said.

“There aren’t many,” she replied. “I come from Sixth Avenue,” and she gave a backward tilt to her head.

I sat and panted, and she went on bitterly, “You dogs don’t know what life is for us cats. You are led out for exercise, and you get it, even if your head is in a muzzle. They take you to the parks. If we crawl out, we can’t get beyond the curbstone. Just think of life without the touch of earth and grass to your paws. Everything paved and stony. I wish I was dead.”

“Some cats go on the roofs,” I said. “I’ve seen them.”

“A roof is glary and there’s no earth there,” she said, “and no one to play with. Cats shouldn’t be allowed in big cities. Look at my face--all broke out with mange.”

“Do you get enough to eat?” I enquired.

“Too much,” she said gloomily. “I belong to an eating-house. I’m supposed to catch mice, but I don’t. I just dream.”

“What do you dream about?” I asked.

Her face grew quite handsome. “I dream of a little cottage with a garden and a kind old woman.”

“Are you a stolen cat?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said miserably. “I come from Mount Vernon way. These folks here were automobiling a few weeks ago, and wanting a cat, stole me.”

“Why don’t you run home?” I asked.

“All that way--up toward Harlem and the Bronx--I’m scared.”

“Look here,” I said, “tell me your address. Maybe some day I can do something for you.”

“The Lady Gay eating-house,” she said, “but there’s precious little gaiety about it.”

“Cheer up,” I said, “I haven’t a home myself, and I’ve had lots of trouble, and I’m going to have more, but I never give up.”

“Where do you live?” she asked curiously.

I began to laugh. “I wish I knew. I’m looking for a home.”

“You’re quite a nobby dog,” she said looking me over. “I suppose our eating-house wouldn’t suit you.”

“Now mind,” I said warningly, “I’m not stuck-up. I love all kinds of people, but for choice give me the rich. They’re so clean, and have so many comforts.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said bitterly. “I wish I had your pluck. I’d like to go home-seeking too.”

“Come along,” I said with a laugh. “I’ll take you.”

She shrank back against the wall, till she looked like a pancake, and drew in her breath. “I’d never dare.”

“If you never dare, you never accomplish anything,” I said.

“But even if I dared,” she said persistently, “how could a cat get through these crowded streets, away up to Mount Vernon?”

“Oh! I don’t know,” I said, “but in your case, I’d do something. There’s always a way out of trouble.”

“Well now, just suppose you’re a cat, and in my place, what would you do?”

“Do those people who stole you, ever motor back in that same direction?”

“Often--it makes me crazy to hear them talk about the lovely times they have spinning along from village to village, and town to town.”

“Why don’t you sneak into the automobile some day when they’re going out, and hide till they get somewhere near your old home. They’d be sure to go in somewhere for a drink, then you could steal out, and make a bolt for your old woman and the cottage.”

“There’s no place to hide in the car,” she said. “They’d discover me.”

“Well then, start out some night, and take the journey in relays. A strong young cat could run miles in a night. By morning, you’d be away from the crowded district.”

“But where would I get my breakfast?” she asked.

“Oh fudge!” I replied. “I see you’re one of those cautious cats that want every step of the way checked out. You’ve got to rely a little on your own initiative, to get on in this world.”

She showed some temper at this, and said snappishly, “I can’t change myself. I’m made timid.”

“Then you’ve got to trust to luck or to a friend.”

“Will you help me?” she said pitifully.

She was a perfect goose of a cat, still I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. “I’ll give you some advice,” I said. “Stop eating meat, and take more exercise. You’re too young a cat to have mange.”

“I do take exercise,” she said. “I come here every night, and watch the folks.”

“Do you call that exercise?” I said disdainfully. “Why, that’s nothing. You should run back and forth for hours. Come in here through this door into this courtyard. I’ll show you how.”

My paws were beginning to get pretty sore by this time, for I had run far that day. However, I notice I always have bad luck, if I don’t stop to help some lame dog or cat over a stile. So I leaped and gambolled round that dark courtyard, and made her do likewise, till her lugubriousness had all faded away.

“I declare I feel like ten cats all rolled in one,” she said holding her head up, and mewing gratefully.

“Now you just come here every night and do this,” I said, “and cut the meat out of your bill-of-fare. Hope on, and if you can’t do anything for yourself, and if I get a good billet, I’ll do something for you.”

“Oh! what will you do?” she mewed anxiously, as she followed me back to Broadway.

“How can I tell, my friend,” I replied. “I’m a dog that acts on impulse. Good-bye, and good luck to you.”

“So long,” she said sweetly. “You’ve brought me hope and cheer. Oh! do come soon again.”

I laughed, and tossed my head as I left her. Who could tell when we should meet again? “You spruce up, and do something for yourself,” I called back. “You’re the best friend you’ve got. Remember that.”

I travelled up Broadway for a while, in a brown study. What a pity that so many of us like the city. The country is certainly better for us. Why didn’t I stay in lovely old Virginia?

Ah! why didn’t I? And I snickered to myself, as I dashed out into the street for a run. We like crowds, and music, and excitement. We like to be pushed, and hurried, and worried; and have funny things and adventurous things, and dreadful things happen. There’s nothing in the world that some human beings and some dogs hate as much as being bored, and that’s what takes us to the cities, and keeps us there till we’re exhausted, and go to the country to recuperate.

But wouldn’t it be possible to have the country made more attractive, I wondered. I’ve heard human beings talk about good roads, and more telephones, and theatres, and moving pictures and churches open all the time, like some of these New York churches where you can go in and rest. More city in the country and more country in the city--that would suit everybody.

I opened my eyes wide when I got to Seventy-second Street. Why, I thought I was down town. How the traffic has moved up!

Broadway got quieter, and cleaner, and broader, as I ran like a fox along the wide pavement. Here was more danger of being seen by a policeman. Two did see me, and one gave chase and threw his club; but I laughed between my paws, and ran on. Let him catch me if he could.

Old Broadway looked fine. There are huge apartment houses where there used to be nothing at all, or else contingents of fair-sized houses squatting along the way, waiting for something to turn up. Now these sky-scraping apartment houses have come in battalions, rearing their lofty heads with their rob-my-neighbour air. There’s something powerfully mean about them, in spite of their good looks. The health commissioner had better get after them, for they steal air and light from all the little houses, and do more harm than we dogs do.

At last I turned toward Riverside Drive. Ah! here was something I liked best of all--plenty of air and light, and the grand old Hudson as sparkling and handsome as ever. I had to jump up on one of the iron seats to look at it, on account of the stone wall. I think a city river, flowing smoothly between houses full of pleasure or trouble, and flashing back their myriad lights, is one of the most soothing sights in the world.

I love the Hudson, and the Thames, and the Seine and many other rivers, and next to them I love the bays, but they are mostly too big to love. It’s the little things that creep next us.

Well, the Hudson looked all right outside, but I hear the fishes are giving it an awful name inside. In fact, no respectable fish comes now within miles of New York.

Riverside Drive is grand with its fine houses, and its breadth and open park spaces. I began to sing a little song to myself as I ran past the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument, “Who’ll take poor doggie in for the night?”

I had struck the regular dog and baby district by this time. Both kinds of pets flourish on Riverside Drive. The babies had all gone to bed, but lots of little boy and girl dogs were taking the air. The most of them were led by maids or men-servants, and a few by their fond owners. Here and there one scampered about, trying to look gay and careless in spite of his sobering muzzle, which made me think of Gringo and his health commissioner.

I often think what a lot of trouble human beings take for us dogs. I’ve seen men and women yawning with fatigue, exercising their dogs at night. They know we love them--that is, some of them do. There’s a powerful lot of dog affection wasted on owners who don’t understand dogs, and never take them out with them. Upon my word, my heart has ached to see the pitiful, beseeching glances some dogs give their masters and mistresses, as if saying, “Do like us a little--we just adore you.”

A sudden thought came to me, as I stared at the various dogs disporting themselves on the Drive. I must get a collar off one of them. I fixed my eye on a young but horribly bloated Boston terrier with a white face who was wearing a collar too large for him. He hadn’t any neck worth speaking of. Now, I am an open-faced, wire-haired fox terrier, and my neck was not nearly as large as this bloated fellow’s. I stalked him for three blocks, till he got skittish, and throwing up his head, left the maid he had been following so closely, and started out by himself for a run in the bushes.

She stood holding his muzzle in her hand, and keeping a keen look-out for policemen.

I stole after him, grabbed his collar with my teeth, slipped my own head in it, and ran like a purse-snatcher with a policeman after him.

Mr. Boston gave an angry roar, but I knew the maid would take care of him, so I loped easily along and forgot about them.

Chapter III

I Find A Second Friend

I still kept to the Drive, and trotted along well up into the hundredth streets. My plan was to have some one find me with the collar on, which undoubtedly had an address on it--but I must not be found near enough to Mr. Boston’s home to be returned that night, for I might be ignominiously turned out into the darkness of the street.

Now for another poor person. If a rich one found me, into an automobile or a taxi would I go, and presto!--the house of the indignant dog I had robbed.

I am not defending my action. I was a naughty, mischievous dog to steal another dog’s collar. I might even be called a thief, but for the fact that I intended to return the collar with me inside it, when I trusted to my native wit to do the rest.

I had better leave the west side, and turn toward the east. I dashed up the hill past the Home for Incurables, made for the big College of New York that I remembered from my former visit, slipped down the slope behind it, and found myself in the kind of district I wanted.

Here was a nice unfashionable avenue--New York certainly has a great number of wide streets--plenty of noise, and many people walking about, lots of well-lighted shops with everything under the sun in them, and a good many persons with kind faces.

I avoided the very young, the very old--there weren’t many of these, anybody that was too gay or too dull, or too dirty and poor-looking. I wouldn’t mind poor people so much, if they would keep clean. The most of them are so careless in their personal habits, that no self-respecting dog wants to live with them.

I chose a respectable-looking coloured woman who was coming out of a nice-looking meat shop. Her shoes were bright and neat, and by the look of her hands, I judged she was a washerwoman. She had been out working by the day, and she was going to have a good hot meat supper in which I would join her.

Sidling close up to her, I whined gently and held up a beseeching paw.

She gazed down at me with a lovely benevolent expression. “Why, doggie,” she said, “what’s the matter?”

I squeezed a little closer, and licked her clean, cotton dress.

I am not considered really beautiful, but I am a very well-bred dog, and most women say I have a nice way with me when I choose.

“Poor little fellow,” she said, “I believe you’re lost, and I just happened to see you.”

I didn’t say anything to this, though I might have told her that most things are arranged. They don’t happen.

“But perhaps you knew me,” she went on. “Maybe I’ve worked for the lady that owns you.”

Maybe she had. I didn’t know.

“And you smelt my tracks and followed me,” she continued. “I’ve heard that some dogs are mighty clever. Bless your little heart. You want me to take you to your home. Come right along with Ellen, and we’ll telephone to the address I see on your collar. I’ve just got a nickel left.”

I felt badly to have her spend money on me, still it does us all good to be benevolent--dogs and human beings too--so I said nothing, and followed her to the telephone booth in a drug store.

I thought I would die laughing to hear her telephoning. “Is this Riverside twenty twenty?” she asked.

Yes, it was.

“Oh! ma’am, I’ve found your dog.”

Of course I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but I guessed what it was. When she said, “But your name is on the collar,” I listened anxiously for the next.

“But,” said my nice coloured woman, “doesn’t the collar go with the dog?”

Something else followed, then my Ellen said, “I did notice it was too big for him. It’s way down over his shoulders. What do you say?”

A long silence came after this. Ellen was listening intently. Finally she hung up the receiver, and looked down at me with a mystified air. “Poor lady--she seems all upset. She said something about a dog thief’s dog, and a collar being stolen. Perhaps she has two dogs.”

Perhaps she is going to have, I thought, but of course I said nothing.

“We’ll go see her in the morning,” said Ellen. “I have to work near there, and now we’ll go home, and have some supper.”

I was not too tired to jump up, and lick her kind, old fingers. Then she led the way to her home, which was in an apartment-house on this same broad avenue. We tugged up six flights of stairs, and while we were going up she said, “I s’pose you’ve been accustomed to elevators, little dog. Poor folks can’t have all the nice things the rich have.” There was nothing to be said to this, except to give her silent sympathy, and stand back while she unlocked her door, and let herself into a neat little set of rooms. She had two bed-rooms and a kitchen, and her son, who was a sidewalk usher in a fashionable hotel, lived with her.

The tiny kitchen was cute. It had a gas stove, a table, two rocking-chairs and two windows. It was just big enough to turn round in. The son, Robert Lee, came up the stairs just after we did, and she hastened to tell him my story.

He laughed heartily, throwing back his head, and showing every tooth he possessed--those teeth of negroes aren’t as white as they look. It’s the contrast of their dark skin that makes them seem to have whiter teeth than white people.

He slipped the collar off my neck, and laid it on a shelf. “It’s a bull-terrier’s collar,” he said, “and this fellow is a fox-terrier, and ought to have a narrower one. I know, ’cause I see the rich folks’ dogs at the hotel. Some one has slipped the wrong collar on this fellow. Yes, take him to that address in the morning. Maybe there’ll be a reward.”

This pleased me, and I licked his nice, dark hands. Then we had a dandy supper, and I had a good long drink of fresh water--my favourite beverage. I don’t care much for milk. While Ellen washed the dishes, Robert Lee sat in one of the rocking-chairs and played on his banjo while he sang to her about “Mighty Lak a Rose,” and “I Want to Go to Tokio,” and “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.”

After a while, he put away his banjo, and we all went to bed.

I slept on the old coloured woman’s couch. She started me on a piece of carpet by the gas stove, but as soon as she was asleep, I sneaked up and lay beside her feet. I saw no earthly reason why I should not do so. I had licked my paws quite clean, and I had no fleas, and I loved a comfortable bed high up, and hated a draughty floor.

In the morning very early, for charwomen must work, while ladies sleep, my nice Ellen got up, roused her son who was sleeping the pig sleep of all healthy young males, and prepared a nice, smelly breakfast--bacon and warmed-over sausage, and two fried eggs, and hot rolls and perfectly scrumptious coffee with real cream from a bottle outside the window.

Rich people say that working people don’t live well. Poor people that have brains enough to work, can live well if they choose, and they mostly do choose. I think they have lots more fun than rich people. They don’t whine and snarl so much, and they laugh harder and oftener, and cry louder and longer.

Ellen would have been frightfully bored on Riverside Drive, or Fifth or Park Avenues. She was one of the happiest women I ever saw, and Robert Lee, her son, whistled all the time. He had a good mother, and a nice molasses shade of girl whose picture he carried in his heart pocket, and he had good wages and plenty to eat, and no enemies, and he didn’t drink, and he had no heavy social duties.

Well, Ellen had her three cups of coffee, and I had a perfectly stunning feed; then Robert Lee went to do his sidewalk posing in front of his hotel, and finally, about eight o’clock, we took a cross-town street and walked toward Riverside Drive.

I love interesting situations, and it nearly tickled me to death to imagine what was going to happen. Poor old Ellen was so pleased in what she called my pleasure in going home. Some dogs would have run away before they would have faced the lady who thought me the dog of a thief, but I trusted to luck and pressed on.

Ellen had too much sense to put a string on me. I jumped and frisked about her, and that young Boston bull’s collar swung and twisted about my neck. By the way, it was a very valuable collar, with fine imitation turquoises in it.

Finally we emerged upon the Drive. The Hudson was more glorious in the morning sunlight than it had been in the starlight of the night before.

Poor Ellen, I thought to myself, here is a chance to whine. These rich people have everything--the big houses, the fine river, the view of the hills and trees over in New Jersey, but will she complain?--Not a bit of it. Ellen doesn’t care for scenery, and she finds the Drive windy. She likes her snug, warm rooms, and the neighbours of her own position in life.

We entered a specially grand apartment-house with a marble entrance, and plenty of mirrors and palms, and we went up in the elevator to the seventh story. Ellen pressed a bell, and a maid with her cap over one ear opened the door.

She stared at us, and said no one was up.

Ellen wasn’t surprised. She knew the ways of well-to-do white folks.

“I’ll wait,” she said patiently.

We sat down, and waited and waited. The first to appear was the Boston bull. He came yawning out of a bed-room, turned stiff-legged when he smelt me, hipped four times round the swell reception room where we were, then emboldened by my detached air, came up, smelt his collar on my neck, bristled, and closed with me.

As he had too much fat and too little wind, I easily floored him, and such a gurgling--I thought he’d choke to death with rage and fright.

A lovely stout lady in a pretty dressing-gown came flying from one room, and a lean, hard-looking athlete of a man from another.

“Oh! my precious Beanie,” wailed the lady. Really, the New York women do give their dogs sickening names. This fellow, I learned, was Baked Beans, and he had just about as much waist as a bean.

“Oh! you idiot,” growled the man.

Baked Beans was pretending I had nearly killed him. I sized up my audience, then I walked up to the man, crouched humbly before him, and put a protesting paw on one of his bed-room slippers.

He must have stood six feet four in his pajamas. I threw him one upward glance. He understood.

We dogs divide man and womankind into two classes. Those who understand us, and those who don’t.

He bent over me, slipped the silly collar from my neck, and twisted it thoughtfully round and round in his fingers. Then he began to laugh, and I thought he would never stop.

“Rudolph,” said the lady, who was hugging the bull, “Rudolph, do stop. You get on my nerves. And what do you see to laugh about? A nasty, fighting, street dog bursts into our apartment, bullies poor Beanie, and you admire him for it. I call it brute force. Now, woman, tell me your business.”

Ellen was smiling indulgently. She was a Southern negress, and had infinite indulgence for the whims of fine ladies. She told her story in an honest, straightforward manner, and the man believed her; but the woman didn’t.

“How much do you want?” she asked coldly, when Ellen had finished.

“You needn’t give me anything, ma’am,” said Ellen sweetly. “It’s a nice morning, and I’ve had a walk before I goes to my work.”

“My dear,” said the gentleman turning to his wife, “you will get cold, go back to bed, and I will arrange this affair.”

“Come, Beanie darling,” said the lady, and she tugged Beanie off in her arms, he looking over her shoulder as if anxious to be in at the death.

The gentleman sat down and asked Ellen to repeat her story. He cross-examined her, then he cross-examined me, asking me questions exactly as if I were a human being.

“This is the crux of the whole matter,” he remarked, “How did that collar get off our dog’s neck to the neck of this strange dog--who, by the way, is a thoroughbred. Our maid said that there seemed to be no man about, only a white dog running.”

The collar had fallen to the floor. I gambolled up to it, ran my head through it, pawed it off, and went back to the man.

“Come up here,” he said patting his knee, and I sprang up, gave him one of my most intelligent glances, and we were friends.

“You rogue,” he said, “you’re a dog of character, and probably a Bohemian.”

“I reckon he’s American, sir,” said Ellen kindly. “He knows all we say to him. I’ll take him, if you don’t want him. I’d like a nice dog.”

The gentleman smiled, and said, “Let him choose. I’ll give him a week’s trial. Now, dog, is it go or stay?”

It was stay, of course. I ran to Ellen, licked her hands and even the face that she bent over me, but I kept looking backward at my new owner.

“You must have something for your trouble,” he murmured, and he went to his room for his purse, and coming back, slipped a bill in her hand. It must have been a big one, for she sneaked a glance at it, then turned back as if to protest.

He waved her toward the door, then he glanced toward his wife’s room, as if he were about to go to it.

“Why anticipate trouble,” he muttered, and signing to me to follow, he entered his own quarters.

Chapter IV

My New Master

I jumped up on the window-seat and looked about me. Some men have comforts, some don’t. This man had a beautiful room overlooking the river, with a nice, white bath-room off it. He splashed and tumbled about in the water, then he dressed himself, and all the while he examined me.

I licked a few stray hairs in place, and took some mud off my paws with my tongue, to let him see I was as clean in my ways as he was. I knew he would not associate with me if I was a dirty dog.

“Boy,” he said at last, “I like you; do you like me?”

I stood up straight, and put my two front paws as far up on his chest as they would go. I loved him. He was handsome, intellectual and unhappy.

Not that he looked unhappy. He had rather an amused face, but we dogs see below the surface.

“Suppose you stay here till breakfast is over,” he remarked. “No use in bringing on scenes. You’re not hungry, are you?”

I shook my head, and curled up on the window seat. He went away, and stayed a short time. I smelt coffee and steak somewhere near, but I never budged, and after a while he came back.

“Suppose you go down town with me, dog,” he said. “The probability is that you would not spend a very interesting morning with Madame and Beanie.”

He grinned and I grinned, then at last he walked boldly out with me at his heels.

We met the lady in the hall, looking perfectly stunning in some kind of a light coloured morning-gown. Dogs don’t have much of an eye for colour. In fact, most of us are colour blind.

“Rudolph,” she screamed, “didn’t you turn that ugly dog out?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Oh! he’s still there, is he? Likely he’ll leave me down town, and run home. _Au revoir_, dearie. Don’t over-exert.”

She bent her cheek and he pecked at it, then he went downstairs, and there at the door was such a jolly, seven-seated motor car. Not a limousine, thank fortune. I hate to drive in a glass box.

The man ran his own car, and I sat between him and the chauffeur. Oh! what fun. We went flying down Riverside Drive, till we couldn’t fly any longer, and we had to turn into Seventy-Second Street and go soberly. Finally we got away down town. So my new master was a business man.

“What will you do?” he said when we at last pulled up before a sky-scraper. “Go to the garage with Louis, or come with me?”

As if there was any comparison between him and Louis! I snuggled close to his smart-looking shoes and silk socks, and together we went in and up, up to a suite of offices where young men, elderly men, stenographers and messengers hummed, and buzzed, and worked, and talked till one o’clock.

I lay under the swivel chair in my new master’s inner office, and enjoyed it all. I love to see human beings working hard.

At one o’clock my master rose, and leaving this hive of industry behind him, went out for lunch.

I have had training enough for ten dogs, and my new master guessed it. He never looked behind, and I never looked before. I kept my muzzle at his shoe heels, and we passed leisurely through the swarms of bees from other hives that were buzzing through halls and in elevators. All were after honey, and we found a particularly agreeable place for ours.

To my astonishment, when our turn came to enter an elevator, we did not go down to the street, but up to the top of the high building we were in. What a surprise awaited me there. I knew there were restaurants and roof gardens in New York, but I had never been in one. I had been in a nice restaurant in San Francisco at the top of a big building, and I was there on the day of a slight earthquake when the whole body of waiters, who wore mustaches, rushed down to the street, shaved their mustaches off, and went back to a famous club from which they had been discharged because they would wear those same mustaches.

Well, something very fine awaited us at the top of this New York building. We stepped out of the elevator, went through a door, and there we were on top of the enormous sky-scraper, and spread out before us was a view of wonderful New York, less wonderful Brooklyn, the Jersey coast, and the magnificent bay and islands.

Master had allowed me to jump on a chair so I could look about me, for dogs, unless they stand high, often lose a view that a human being can enjoy.

I was enchanted, but the wind blew so hard that I was glad to jump down, and follow my new master into a protected place. Here were tables, chairs, mirrors--a regular, attractive and pretty restaurant, better than any we would find on the street in this down town district. It was enclosed by glass, and from nearly all the seats, one could enjoy the same magnificent view that one had outside.

My master did not stay in this eating-place, which I learned afterward was for all the people in the building. He passed through a long corridor, went down some steps, along a covered walk--all this was glassed in--and to the top of a lower building. Indeed, it seemed to me that we were passing over the tops of many buildings and I found out afterward that this was correct. Mr. Granton--for this was my master’s name--and some other men had acquired the right to build on the tops of the sky-scrapers, and here they had an agreeable promenade in fresh air, and away from the dust of the street. At last we entered a pretty little café, furnished in Louis something-or-other style. Well, attached to this dainty little café with its mirrors, and spindle-legged tables and chairs, was a tiny, formal rose garden with real flowers and gravel walks.

The whole thing reminded me of Paris, and I soon found out that it was a French restaurant, and that my master, who had been partly educated in France, loved the French people.

He had his lunch at a small table by himself, drawn up close to the entrance of the garden, and I sat under his chair, and inhaled the perfume of the roses, and gazed at the pretty thing with ecstasy. It was enclosed by lattice work entwined with green leaves, and all round the lattice work ran a deep bed of flowering roses. On looking closely, I found that they were in pots sunk in trenches. However, the effect was of a regular out-of-door flowering garden. In the middle was a round bed with a pink rambler climbing round a sun-dial. In one corner was a baby pergola with another climber embracing it, and at the top of the pergola a tiny little bird-box, out of which frequently stepped a wee yellow canary. He had a box of seeds fastened to the pergola, and when he wanted a drink, he went to a tiny fountain in one corner of the garden.

While my master was eating, this little bird sang to him, but did not offer to come near him. It was not afraid of him, for Mr. Canary regarded the garden as his home. Neither was he afraid of me, knowing he had wings, and then, though he was only a mite of a creature, he knew my attitude was not threatening.

He had a little mate among the roses, but she did not come out--merely peeped at us.

Master had rather a dainty lunch for such a big man. Mine was dainty too--a little too dainty for a medium-sized dog--for Monsieur Canovel, who ran the café, had a Frenchman’s frugal ways. However, the _garçon_ sneaked me a few extras. These foreigners that come round, smirking and bowing, and hoping that everything is to monsieur’s liking, are really not as satisfactory as Americans, who apparently scarcely glance at their patrons, yet if a prominent one brings in a dog, say, “Waiter, give him a plateful.”

I love to run over the names of things to eat. Even the sound is appetising, so I will say that master had _bouillon_ and vegetables served separately, and then French stew, and a dish which smelt like those delicious things made of hard crusts of bread, which poor children pick out of the gutters in Paris and sell to the restaurants, where they are washed and ground and made into little pies.

Nobody saves crusts in this country. We Americans, dogs and human beings, are too extravagant. A French dog could live on the discards from my table.

After master had his lunch, he strolled about the gravelled walks of the tiny garden that was not much bigger than Gringo’s yard, for only twenty-five men use this pretty place. He did not smoke, he whistled to the canary, who knew him, and got angry when master picked a rose from his pergola and put it in his buttonhole.

After a while, a gentleman who had been lunching at a table near us came over to my master, and began to talk about his arcade scheme, which I soon found out was a plan to lessen the crowds on the streets of New York, by building arcades like those on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, except that the top would be flat, so the people could walk on them too.

“It would give a double row of store-fronts,” said my master’s friend, “and increase the value of second story property. How much will you put in, Granton?”

Master said he would consider it.

“In addition,” went on his friend, “I have a plan to force the owners of apartment-houses to build kennels and runways on the tops of their houses, so that dogs owned by tenants, can be exercised there, instead of in the street, where they have to wear muzzles.”

Master smiled, and said, “That’s more in my line. Let me know when you want to get that law passed,” then he nodded good-bye to his friend, and we sauntered back along the roofs to the elevator, and descended to our hive.

He worked with the other bees till five, when we swarmed to the street. There was Louis with the car. I jumped up beside master, and we wended our way uptown to Madame.

I gathered from Mr. Granton’s remarks that he took her out nearly every day. On arriving before the apartment-house, he murmured, “Suppose you get under Louis’ lap-robe.” Then he added, “No--we might as well have it out first as last.”

When Madame came out with Beanie toddling after her, she stopped, and gave a squeal at sight of me.

“Rudolph, didn’t that ugly thing leave you?”

I bridled--I’m doggy in appearance, still I’m not ugly--I’m distinguished. One of the _garçons_ at the French restaurant said I looked like a _chien de race_ and he was more right than he knew. “Clossie,” said my master, “I like this dog.”

“I can’t help that,” she said in her trailing voice. “I know he’ll kill my darling boy.”

At sight of his wife, my master had jumped from the car and stood on the sidewalk.

“Permit me,” he said, and leaning across her he took young Fatty Beans and put him on the seat beside me.

The lady gave a shriek, and covered her eyes with her little white gloves.

When she looked up, young Beans sat beside me, straight as a major. I had hissed in his ear, “If you don’t pretend to like me, I’ll knock the stuffing out of you, first chance I get.”

The young fellow didn’t want to get unstuffed, so he turned to his mistress with a sickly grin.

“Why, darling,” she said slowly, “I believe you like him. Was he lonely doggie by his own seffies?”

He hadn’t been a lonely doggie by his own “seffies,” but he was too frightened to tell her so, and if he had, she didn’t possess enough knowledge of dogs to understand him.

With a wondering face, Madame stepped in beside her husband who had taken his old place.

“Now what about the dogs?” she asked. “I was planning to take Beanie in here with me as usual, but perhaps he’d rather sit with his new friend.”

“By all means,” said her husband hastily. “Let them both go with Louis.”

Louis was a splendidly trained servant. When Madame talked dog-talk he was convulsed with inward laughter, but he showed no outward trace except by a tremor of the eyelid. But when he got with other chauffeurs--_ma foi_! You’d die laughing to hear him imitate her--but he liked Mrs. Granton all the time. I found out that later.

After a time, we set out. Madame and Monsieur in front, Louis and dogs behind.

Louis liked me, but he used to pinch Beans slyly. Poor Beanie, he didn’t enjoy that first drive.

I was dying to know some friends of my new family. Fortunately we met one who was walking down the Drive with a collie dog at her heels. Oh! what a keen, intelligent Scottish face he had, and hers was just as keen and intelligent an American face.

My master stopped the car, and his wife called out, “Why, how do you do, Stanna--want to have a spin with us?”

Miss Stanna, all laughing and rosy in her black furs, pointed to her dog. “Sir Walter Scott wouldn’t like that. He’s out for his constitutional.”

“See our new dog?” continued Madame. “He’s absolutely forced himself on us.”

Miss Stanna gave me a sharp glance. I gave her one. She understood dogs too. I got up and stretched my neck toward her.

“Later on, dog,” she said, and she waved her hand toward me, “I’ll be charmed to have a talk with you.” Then she called out, “Good-bye, Clossie and Rudolph; good-bye, dogs,” and she strolled on.

We went on our way twisting and turning, but always gliding so smoothly about this wonderful city. Is it because it is so big that one doesn’t get tired of New York?

We had gone away out to Van Cortlandt Park, and were thumping along a bit of bad road between the sad trees with their scant covering of dry leaves, when, to my dismay, we came suddenly abreast of another car in which sat one of my former owners whom I had not treated very well.

Chapter V

An Old Friend, And An Adventure

Before I had time to dodge under the lap-robe, Miss Bright-Eyes caught sight of me.

That was what I always called her, because she had such piercing shoe buttons of eyes. Her real name was Pursell, and she was a native daughter of the Golden State. Her grandfather had been an old forty-niner who had made a fortune in land.

“Why, Mrs. Granton,” she giggled, “I think I see an old friend with you. Where did you get him?”

Mrs. Granton did not at first understand her, then she said, “Oh! you mean the dog. Louis, make him stand up, so Miss Pursell can see him. Do tell us something about him.”

“See him wiggle and fawn,” said Miss Bright-Eyes. “Oh! he is a rogue. I had him for a whole year, and gave him the best time a dog ever had. We never could make out why he ran away from us.”

Mr. Granton spoke up. “Do you mean to say you had this dog out in California?”

“Yes,” she replied, “in Los Angeles. We used to have such fun. We’d motor to Santa Monica, and go in bathing, and doggie had such good times. What made you leave me, pup?” and she surveyed me good-naturedly.

How I longed for the power of speech! She was a fresh air and fresh water fiend. She used to take me in bathing with her and make me dive under the breakers, and she put cotton wool in her own ears but never a spear in mine, and I got deaf; and then her old man-servant used to bathe me in the garage and get soap in my eyes with his wobbly old hands, and I got angry, and cleared out. I am a clean dog, but I don’t want the hide scoured off me.

Mr. Granton gave me one of his penetrating glances, then he said to Miss Bright-Eyes, “Do you think the dog was happy with you?”

“Happy, certainly,” she replied. “Everything was done for him.”

I barked protestingly.

“Tell us how you treated him,” said Mr. Granton.

“Well, as soon as I had my breakfast, he was with me till lunch time, walking or driving, then he spent the rest of the day with the servants.”

“Interesting servants?” pursued Mr. Granton.

“Well, not particularly. All old ones--they belonged to my grandmother.”

“H’m,” murmured Mr. Granton thoughtfully, “and he would be younger then than he is now, and he’s lively yet. Where did you get him?”

“Bought him from a man in the street,” said Miss Pursell. “He said he found him running about without a collar. He has lots of tricks. Jump out, dog, and let me put you through some of your stunts.”

I was quite stiff from sitting so long, but I wanted to please Mr. Granton, so I sprang out to a bit of level ground and danced on my hind legs, rolled over, did dead dog, howled an operatic air with one paw on my chest, and wound up with double somersaults.

The Grantons laughed heartily, but Beanie was nearly suffocated with jealousy, and when I got back beside him and Louis, he bit me.

What a nip he got in return! Mrs. Granton screamed at his loud howl, and turning round, reproached Louis for not taking better care of him.

Louis pressed his gloved hand to his mouth and said in a choked voice, “Beg pardon, ma’am. I accidentally squeezed his ear with my arm.” Then he gave me a poke with his elbow and said, “No more of that, you young Spitfire.”

We went spinning toward Yonkers after we left Miss Pursell, and just after getting beyond it, had an adventure.

We were on a fine piece of road--what magnificent roads they are building, and so quickly too, outside most American cities--when we came to a big, powerfully ugly, red brick house, standing in its own grounds.

“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Granton, “Suppose we call on the Johnsons. It’s just about afternoon tea time.”

Mr. Granton didn’t want to, but she made him do it. We rolled up to the _porte-cochère_, but master was going to have his own way in something, and when she wanted to take Beanie in, he wouldn’t let her.

So Louis and I and Beanie were instructed to take a little spin down the road, and come back in twenty minutes.

Just after we left the red brick house, we came to a long, level bit of road, and Louis was speeding up a bit when I pulled his sleeve. Off on our right was a sheet of water, with a man in it, yelling his head off for help.

Louis was out of the machine like a shot, and I after him. Beanie sat blinking. I can see him now, the silly ass.

The little French chauffeur danced about at the edge of the water, like a monkey on hot bricks. Before I came to New York, there had been quite a time of sharp weather, and ice had formed. This foolish fellow in the water had taken his skates and gone off to have a little fun by himself. Now he was splashing about, postponing his final going under as long as possible.

“Hold on, hold on,” called Louis; “I’m coming,” but instead of coming, he went smashing through the thin ice just as often as he stepped on it.

I learned afterward, that he was a fine swimmer, and quite an athlete, but what could he do when he couldn’t get to the man?

He had thrown his cap and coat on the ground, and seizing his hair by both hands, he whirled round and round in the road, in his uncertainty. Not a soul was in sight. Fortunately his desperate eyes fell on the extra tire at the back of the car.

In a twinkling, he had it off, and lashed to it a rope that Mr. Granton always has him carry in the car. The marvellous thing was, that he hadn’t thought of the rope at first. Master would have, if he’d been there. Well, it wasn’t too late now, and didn’t he hurl that tire at the poor drowning man who had just enough strength left to cling to it. Then Louis, playing the man as one would a salmon, tried to haul him in.

He is as slight as a girl, and couldn’t do it. He tugged and panted, and groaned, and called out, but no one came, and I suppose we had passed thousands of cars that afternoon.

Finally, Louis had another bright idea. He tied the rope to the car, sprang to his seat, and off he started, looking frequently over his shoulder.

He easily motored the man to land, then springing from the car, took hold of him to support his half-fainting body to the car.

It isn’t necessary to report what he said when he found the man was an enormously fat lady with bloomers on. However, with some help from her, he tugged her into the car and laid her on the floor of it, under the surprised Beanie who sat on the seat looking as if he had seen a ghost.

Then didn’t we fly to the brick house. I ran after the car, and hadn’t a bit of breath left when we got there.

The people came running out, and lifted the fat lady in, who, it seems, was a very important person--an English suffragette who had come to this country because she wouldn’t stop throwing bricks at shop windows in England. She was a guest in the house and her name was Lady Serena Glandison. She was also to give a lecture that night in New York. I heard the Grantons talking about it afterward, and master said she was a dead-game sport, for she persisted in giving the lecture.

She wanted to reduce her flesh, and had gone off to have a quiet little skate by herself, not being particularly beautiful in bloomers. Wasn’t she grateful to Louis! She said most undoubtedly she would have drowned, but for him. She sent him a cheque for a thousand dollars, and he is to get more later on, when women get the vote in England and she doesn’t have to spend so much in fines for her pastime of window smashing.

“If they ever do,” said my master.

I may add that Lady Serena is an ultra who wouldn’t stop her militant work on account of the war. She says she can see lots of reasons for smashing windows, but none for smashing men’s ribs. So she came to America to wait for the fighting to be over in Europe.

Chapter VI

Beanie Loses His Home

A week or two went by, and I was as happy as a king--maybe I’d better say a president, as kings don’t seem to be getting much fun out of life at present.

I had had many homes, many masters and mistresses, but never a master like this one. He just suited me. I often used to wonder what it was about him that made me like him so much. I had seen men just as handsome, just as amiable, just as lovable--there was something I could not explain about it. When he looked at me with his deep-set grey eyes, I felt that I could die for him. He was my man affinity. He understood me, and he never believed anything against me unless it was very fully proved, and then--he always forgave me.

His confidence in me made me want to be a better dog, and I stopped nipping Beanie on the sly, and gave up stealing Mrs. Granton’s gloves and chewing them up.

I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me. What could you make of a woman who insisted upon being called “Clossie” instead of Claudia, which was her real name. Claudia has some dignity to it, but Clossie--it didn’t sound to me like a lady, and master just hated it, but he had to say it.

They didn’t get on very well together. I often heard the servants talking about it. Louis was for mistress, and the cook and the waitress and the girl who came to do mistress’s hair and finger-nails were for master.

“She’s a fraud,” said cook emphatically. “A woman her age ain’t got no business lazing in bed till all hours of the morning, and when she gets up, what does she do? Fools round, putting in time, and then travels down town and wastes money shopping, or goes to the theatre.”

“She don’t do nothing for nobody all day long,” the waitress would break in. “It’s self, self, self--do I look pretty--is my skin all right--am I getting old--bah! I’d like to give her a job scouring brasses.”

Then Louis would stand up for her. “The old man’s clever (I regret to say they usually called master the old man, and mistress Mrs. Putty-Face). Why don’t he make more of her? If she was my wife, I’d teach her things. Why don’t he point out things on the river when we’re motoring, and do he ever read to her of an evening?”

He never did, but the maids wouldn’t tell him this, so Louis, who was a French-American, speaking fairly good English with here and there a funny mistake, went on. “When I comes in for orders, there he sits glooming one side of the fire, she the other--the table a-tween them. Man and wife should be close up, and speaking by-times.”

“She ain’t got no language,” said cook. “She never does talk but of fooleries.”

“She stands for her dog,” said Louis feebly, for the women always out-talked him.

Here the young girl who did her hair and nails, and who used to come out to the kitchen for a cup of tea, made a very dismal prophecy about Beanie that unfortunately came true.

“Just listen to me,” she said wrinkling her dark eyebrows, “that woman ain’t got no thought for anything but herself. Husband, help, dog--she’d see you all in the Hudson, and never lift a finger to save you. Why, when that fat dog comes between her and a table or a chair in the bed-room, that she’s making for, he gets a push that lands him most into the next room. If she took it into her head to get rid of him, out he’d go.”

Louis was sweet on this girl, and he smiled at her. “I never saw no kicking from her,” he remarked amiably. “Mrs. Putty-Face has been kind along to me. I often gets a tip. Maybe she’ll make good yet. She’s young, ain’t she?”

This brought on a long, tiresome argument. When the maids got on mistress’s clothes or her age, I always left the kitchen. Why don’t they talk about the war or politics, instead of that eternal drivel about master and mistress?

The two people at the head of the establishment never mentioned them, nor looked at them, except to ask for something. I wonder whether that was not one reason why there was not more sympathy between the working end and the commanding end of the house. I had been in several homes before this, where there was criticism between employer and employed, but a criticism softened by sympathy and mutual interest.

I blamed mistress. Down at the café, the servants were never familiar with the gentlemen patrons, but there was a good spirit prevailing, and I heard no hateful remarks there. The gentlemen were kind to the _garçons_, in a quiet way, and the _garçons_ were respectful to the gentlemen, and they got their reward, for once when one of them fell ill, the gentlemen clubbed together, and sent him to a beautiful place in the country.

To come back to Beanie, I had noticed for several days that mistress hadn’t been talking silly talk to him, and usually left him home, when she went out in the car. He wasn’t apprehensive about it. His too solid flesh made him a stupid dog. He was simply annoyed to miss his outing. However, to give him credit, he never said a word against his mistress. He just plodded round the apartment after her, never doubting that she adored him as much as she said she did.

One evening, when she was sitting with her two pretty, light slippers stretched out toward the wood fire in the fire-place, she said suddenly, “Rudolph, I’m going to change Beanie and get a toy Pomeranian.”

Mr. Granton turned round and said, “What!” He was sitting, as he usually did, beside a little table which had a shaded electric light on it. He was reading a book about the war, and sometimes stopped to gaze thoughtfully in the fire. Mrs. Granton wouldn’t talk about it to him. All she knew about the fighting in Europe was, that it would stop, for a time, her yearly visits to Paris to buy gowns.

He was staring at her. Finally he said, “I thought you were fond of Beanie.”

“I thought I was,” she said carelessly, “but Poms are more fashionable, and smaller. Beanie’s too fat to carry, and I think a small dog under the arm looks smart.”

“What will you do with Beanie?” asked Mr. Granton.

“Sell him of course--I’ll get a good price. I gave two hundred for him. I’ll send him to a vet to be starved for a while. He’s too fat now.”

Upon my word, I was sorry for Beanie. He sat listening to her, as if he could scarcely believe his ears. The poor simpleton had so presumed on the fact of her loving him. I could have told him long ago, he was in a dog-fool paradise.

Mr. Granton opened his mouth, as if to say something, then he shut it again. He took up his book, and went on reading about the war till Mrs. Granton’s smacking of her lips over her chocolates and novel got on his nerves. It usually did about eleven o’clock.

He got up, looked out the window, said, “I think I’ll take a walk.” Then he said carelessly, “Have you quite made up your mind to sell your dog?”

“Quite,” she said, smiling and showing her pretty teeth. She was really very pinky sweet and lovely. If she had only had a mind in her doll body.

“And you would be satisfied with two hundred dollars?”

“I’d be satisfied with a hundred and fifty,” she said, “he’s no longer quite young, according to looks. His amount of flesh ages him.”

Beanie gasped and panted by the fire, and finally went to hide his shamed head in the corner.

“I suppose you know he understands all this,” said Mr. Granton.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, “he’s only a dog.”

This roused poor young Beans. He waddled up to her, rose on his hind legs, and laid his two forepaws on her lap. His mouth was wide open, and he was panting heavily, trying to look engaging and fascinating, and succeeding only in looking silly.

“Go away, you little fool,” she said pushing him aside. “I’ve taken a dislike to you.”

Beanie went to hide his diminished head under the sofa.

Mr. Granton was drawing a fountain pen from his pocket, and a little book. He wrote out a cheque for one hundred and fifty dollars, and gave it to her.

“You might have made it two hundred,” she said peevishly.

He smiled. He was too good a man of business to pay more for a thing than he had to, even to his own wife.

“Your dog is mine now,” he said.

“Very well,” she replied carelessly, “and mind, I don’t want that fat awkward thing round this apartment. We’ve too many dogs now,” and she glared at me.

She had never forgiven me for staying with her husband, and I knew, and he knew, that she was jealous of me.

“I’ll find a home for him,” said Mr. Granton. “Come on, Beans, since you’re my dog now, come out and take a walk with Boy and me.”

He always called me Boy or Boy-Dog. He said I was too clever to be just plain dog.

I hate sorrow and suffering and ugly things. With my tail between my legs, I slunk after my master. I didn’t like to look at Beanie. He was behind me. Poor, poor young dog--prematurely aged on account of the over feeding, over-petting and the over-everything of a foolish mistress, and now shaken out of his paradise.

He looked frightfully, but he made an effort to hold himself up, and waddled toward the elevator with us.

When we got in the street, Mr. Granton said kindly, “I’ll carry you a while, old man. You’re rather knocked in a heap,” and he actually took that fat young dog under his arm, and walked block after block with him, till Beanie got back some of his usual complacent self-possession.

Then he put him down, and walked slower than usual, in order to accommodate his new acquisition. I walked close to Beanie, and from time to time touched his head with my muzzle.

“Cheer up, young fellow,” I said, “you’re lucky to have changed hands. You would have been dead in a few months. You’re all out of condition. Master will get you a good home.”

“I don’t want another home,” he said miserably. “I want my old one, and I love my mistress.”

“In spite of the way she’s treated you?” I asked.

“That doesn’t make any difference with a dog,” he replied.

“It would with me,” I said.

“You’re not an ordinary dog,” he said. “You’re an exception.”

“I believe that’s true,” I said. “I wonder where we’re going.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he said wretchedly, and he plodded along like a machine.

Master had left Riverside Drive, and was going slowly up One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Street. Soon we were in the shadow of Great Hall of the College of New York. Some one was playing the organ, and through an open door, we could catch the solemn strains of some dirge-like music.

Master stood still for a while, either to listen, or to breathe the panting Beanie, whose eyes were dim with tears, as he looked not up at the white-picked stone mass of the building, but down at the cold, stone pavement.

Presently we went on with our faces to the east. Now it dawned upon me where we were going. I jumped and frisked about my master. How clever he was. He had remembered old Ellen’s address. She was just the one to soothe and comfort poor Beanie.

“See what a nice wide avenue you’re going to live on,” I said to Beanie.

“There’s no view of the River,” he muttered.

I sighed. There’s no comforting a dog with a broken heart.

He did cheer up a bit, when we got into Ellen’s flat. How glad she was to see my master. Not cringingly glad, but glad in the nice, affectionate way coloured people have toward those they like.

She was sitting in one of the big rocking-chairs in her tiny kitchen, and had evidently been looking out the window at the crowds of people sauntering to and fro on the brightly lighted avenue. This was a great place for the coloured persons employed among whites to come to see their friends and families, and on a fine evening they did a good deal of their talking in the street.

Master motioned her back to her chair, and he took Robert Lee’s rocker at the other little window.

“I have brought you a present,” he said, and he glanced at Beanie and me as we lay at his feet.

Old Ellen’s face glowed. “A present--for me, sir? May the Lord bless you.”

“It’s alive,” said my master, and he pointed to Beanie.

Ellen almost screamed. “Sir! not that lovely, fat dog!”

Master nodded, and she swooped down on Beanie, and took him, troubles and all, right up in her ample lap. It reminded me of the song she sang me when I was here before. “Take up de young lambs, tote ’em in your bosom, an’ let de ole sheep go.”

Beanie’s whole soul was shrinking from her, but he put a steady face on his troubles, and even curled his short lip gratefully at her.

She began to sway to and fro, rubbing her bleached old hand over his tired head.

“Don’t let him out alone,” said my master, “he might run home.”

Ellen’s face was almost silly with happiness. “There ain’t no little pickaninny in New York, that’ll have the ’tention this little master dog will have,” she said earnestly.

She always began to talk in a southern way when she saw master. I think he recalled her old employers down South.

“How will you feed him?” asked my master. “He has quite a good appetite.”

Ellen looked master all over with the good-natured cunning of her race. “Sir,” she said, “you looks like the gen’l’men down South--you wouldn’t let your little dog suffer nohow, even if it was Ellen’s.”

Master laughed heartily. He loved frankness, and hated deceit. “Ellen,” he said, “that dog will have a limited income as long as he lives. It will be paid weekly, and you will have to go to an address I will give you to get it. As he enjoys driving, I will have a carriage call for you once a week, and you can take Beans with you to report for himself.”

Old Ellen didn’t know what to say. She looked everywhere--all round the room, out the window, down at the dog in her lap, and hard at me, as I sat staring at her.

Finally she got up, put Beanie down, and said quietly, “Sir, would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Very much,” he replied.

Ellen lighted her gas stove, got out the big pot, made the coffee, and handed him a cup and saucer that she took from a cupboard in the wall.

Master handled it in surprise. “This is Sèvres,” he said, “and costly.”

“Sir,” she said solemnly, “that was a present from my old mistress whose heart was broke by de war.”

Master held the cup out from him, as if he dreaded to touch his lips to it.

“But,” said old Ellen in the queer, mysterious voice negroes can assume, “happiness come afore she died--Sir, is you happy?”

The big, old negress suddenly towered over my master, and laid a hand on his head.

“No, Ellen,” he said quite simply, “God knows I’m not happy.”

The old woman stared up at the ceiling, and her eyes became quite glassy. “Oh! Lord,” she said with a frightful fervour--“drive away de clouds from poor Mister’s heart. Bring him light--It’s comin’. Oh! Lord--I see it--comin’ like de wings of an eagle. I see it a-swoopin’ right down on Mister, dear, good man,” and suddenly turning her back on him, she began to clap her hands.

Master drank his coffee, and never said a word. I had been with him long enough to know, that he was a very unemotional man, and yet he was all alive with tenderness inside.

He had a little superstition too, for he was watching Ellen from the corner of his eye, and was pleased by her interest in him.

Finally he got up, and went over to poor young Beans who lay in the chair, taking no stock in all this sentiment.

“Good-bye, my dog,” he said. “You’re young--you’ll get over this.”

Beans, of course, tried to follow us from the room. Our last sight of him, was at the head of the staircase, struggling in old Ellen’s arms.

“Dog, dog,” she said rebukingly, “old Ellen knows. There’s a cloud going to burst over you all. Mister an’ dog--an’ it’s full o’ blessings.”

My master smiled at intervals all the way home. He always made for Riverside Drive, and never stayed any longer than he could help in the blocks and blocks of streets between it and East River. This night there were heavy masses of clouds over the river, but just before we got home, the moon broke through, and showed a superb, smiling face.

My master paused, and leaning both elbows on the stone parapet, stared at the moon. “Suppose it should come,” he murmured--“perfect happiness--in the right way--the only way it could come now, is a wrong way.”

His voice was frightfully sad and perplexed. How I longed to comfort him, but I was only a dog--and moreover, I didn’t know all his troubles. I was pretty sure they weren’t money troubles.

I did all I could. I jumped up, and licked his hand.

“Boy,” he said, withdrawing his gaze from the moon to look at me, “you’re the greatest comfort I have.”

Wasn’t I proud and happy! I almost wriggled myself out of my body.

With a beautiful smile, but a heavy sigh, he turned, and we started toward home which we did not reach without a further adventure.

Chapter VII

The Woman By The River

As all travelled dogs know, Riverside Drive, which I claim is the loveliest stretch of avenue in New York, has, at intervals, a sunburst of a park. Those strips of park are delicious for my race. Did you ever notice a sober, city dog trotting behind his master till an open square is reached? If he is a normal dog, his legs begin to dance, and he begs permission to have a scamper.

Some of these little fool-dog creations that have been inbred till they are nothing but a stomach with a little skin wrapped round it, have, of course, no natural impulse left, but I insist that any dog with a remnant of real dog left in him, adores the open. We get this love of liberty from our wolf and dingo ancestors.

Well, as I trotted behind and before, and encircled and interwove master, better than any skirt dancer could have done, I heard presently a wailing in front of us.

We soon came up with the wailer--a dirty, pretty child about four years of age, dragged by the arm by a sullen, slatternly woman who looked about as much out of place on Riverside Drive as master would have looked in Gringo’s saloon.

The woman was tired and ugly, and the child was discouraged and weary. Poor little imp--I can see his bare legs now, looking cold and fiery in the nipping night air.

Master followed behind the woman, biting his lip, and trying to hold himself back, but he couldn’t.

At last, when a jerk more forcible than any before made the little wanderer burst into heartsore weeping, something gave way in master, and he strode after the woman.

He held his hat in his hand, and I could see the perspiration glistening on his forehead.

The child turned his poor, little, tear-stained face over his shoulder.

Master held out both his hands, “Oh! give him to me!” he said in a dreadful voice.

Now I knew one reason at least, why he was not happy. He wanted a little child of his own.

The awful looking woman turned, and confronted him like an angry, hissing snake.

“Not much,” she just spat at him, and taking the child in her arms, she kissed it and comforted it, and went on her weary way.

“Would you kidnap all I’ve got left?” she said savagely over her shoulder.

Master’s hands dropped to his sides. His face looked like the moon when it burst through the clouds.

“So you love it,” he said in a delicious voice.

“Love it,” she croaked, then she said some emphatic words that didn’t hurt me nor my master, and which are not necessary to repeat.

“I’m drug out,” she said, after we’d followed her for a few steps.

“Stop,” said my master, and he took the child from her and swung it up to the stone wall, and stood staring into his little face, so happy now because his mother had comforted him.

“What are you doing up here?” he asked the woman, without looking at her.

She sank down on the ground, just like a dog.

“I came up to see a janitor in one of those big houses,” she said, “he used to be a pal of mine, but he’s moved. If he’d been there, I’d got a car fare and some grub.”

Master didn’t ask her story. It was written all over her. “Would you work in a laundry?” he asked presently.

“Who’d take me?” she said sneeringly. “Look at that, for dirt,” and she held up a bit of her horrible dress.

“My laundry would,” he said dryly.

“You ain’t got a laundry,” she said quickly, and she shot a glance up at him from her bleared eyes.

“Yes I have--here’s the address,” and he thrust a card in her hand.

“Read it,” she said drearily. “I ain’t got my specks.”

“Good Heaven,” muttered my master, casting her a reluctant glance. “Not much over twenty, and senile decay.”

As if understanding him, she murmured, “You had good feed when you was a kid. I was stuffed from swill cans, and treated to tasty bits from the dumps.”

A shudder ran over my master. “Don’t you write no country name,” she said with feeble wrath. “I’ll not leave this little old New York agin.”

“It’s ’way down town,” he said shortly, as he handed her the card, “and here’s car fare. Mind, no drink on the way.”

“I’m too beat out,” she said, struggling to her feet. “I’ve heard of you. You’re the odd fellow that runs that place for the likes of us, an’ ain’t too partickler about rules. I’ll go in, for I’ve wanted to get in, but didn’t know how, and I’ll stay till I die, and go to nobody knows where. That’ll be soon, an’ you kin have him”--and she nodded toward the child.

Master turned to leave her. “Stop,” she said in her husky voice, “I’m goin’ to wish somethin’ on you.” Then she looked up at the moon. “He ain’t got a kid of his own,” she said softly, “I know by the look in his eyes. Send him one, Mrs. Moon, you’re the only mother I know.”

As if afraid he would thank her, she held her child tight to her, and shuffled off toward Broadway.

Master stared after her for a long time, then he muttered, “That’s the second time I’ve been blessed to-night. Queer, isn’t it, dog?--Now, as that child must have a warm welcome at the laundry, let’s go telephone before we get home. We don’t want our right hand to know too much about the left hand.”

Chapter VIII

Stanna And Napoleon

Some very interesting things happened right straight along after that night. I found out lots of things about my master. He was a regular public benefactor and he had the name of being one of the stingiest men on the Drive.

He did everything anonymously. Rich people are horribly preyed upon in New York. Some of his friends who were known to be generous used to get a mail that staggered the postman. They were stung and bothered by their benefactions as if they had been noxious insects.

Master’s beneficiaries couldn’t sting him, for they didn’t know who he was. He found many of them on the Drive, and at night. For such a quiet man, it was wonderful to see him make friends.

He would saunter along the Drive, stop to lean on the stone walls or bridge railings, or sit on one of the seats, and some other man would be pretty sure to engage him in conversation. It’s mostly always the sad who loiter. The happy walk quickly. Master always wore an old coat, and a cap pulled pretty well over his face. Many a man did he save from despair, either by a word of comfort, or by some assistance in business. He had no home for men, but he had had his Bluebird Laundry for women, for some time.

All his reports from it he received at night. The director would join him on the Drive, usually at midnight, and they would walk to and fro and talk of more things they could do for the benefit of girls and women who were out of employment, and who hated restraint.

Master never visited the place, for he didn’t want to be recognised. He was astonishingly keen, however, in knowing all about it. One night, I heard him ask the director if a certain room didn’t want repapering.

The man looked at him in surprise. “It does, but how do you know?”

Master’s face glowed. “I see it all in my mind’s eye.” Then he added, “Refurnish the room too, and have the bluebirds larger than ever. Women need more and more happiness.”

One evening, as we were setting out earlier than usual, we walked down by the collie dog’s house, and met Miss Stanna coming out to exercise him.

I had got to love this young girl who often visited the Grantons. She was not so very young--twenty-two or thereabout. She had a brave, fine face, and it never grew weary, no matter how worried she was inside.

By things the servants said, I knew that Stanna and her brother lived with a grandmother, that they had been very rich, but the war had made them poor, and the grandmother was trying to find a rich husband for Stanna, and the girl wouldn’t help her.

“Hello! Wasp,” said my master, quite like a jolly young boy. His face always lighted up when he saw this pretty girl, and in common with all the persons in her set, he called her by her nickname.

I asked Walter Scott one day why his young mistress was called the Wasp, and he said it was on account of a costume she wore at a fancy ball, a short time ago. The dress was black and gold and had gauzy wings, and ever since that time her intimate friends had called her “Wasp” or “Waspie.”

Miss Stanna had very pretty manners, for much pains had been taken with her education. Naturally, she was very frank and mischievous, but she was always covering up this native gush and frolicsomeness by an assumed conventionality.

To-night she looked merry, and full of fun. She bowed very prettily, and gave a little skip as she held out her hand to my master.

“Grandmother is terribly shocked,” she said laughing all over her face, “but Walter Scott was pining for a run, and the maids are out, and brother Carty too. I promised to stay fifteen minutes only, and to walk up and down in sight of the house. I’m so glad you’ve come--scamper now, Sir Walter and Boy Dog.”

I didn’t want to scamper, I wanted to hear her talk, for I was very much interested in her. So I kept close to my master, and Sir Walter, after finding out that I did not care to accompany him, ran off alone. That dog always had such perfect manners--acquired abroad, for he had been born in a castle in Scotland, and rather looked down on everybody on the Drive, human beings and dogs too, because so few of us were perfectly aristocratic.

He claimed that it was impossible to acquire finish of manner and conventional elegance in a country as new as America. We used to have heated arguments about it, and his known opinions on the subject kept him from becoming a favourite among the dogs in our set.

He said I was an aristocro-democrat dog, while he was pure aristocrat. I said I was a good, American dog, and believed in our own institutions, George Washington and all that sort of thing; and I claimed that if one worked hard enough at it, one could obtain ease of manner and polish in this country as well as in any other.

Walter was never convinced. I used to say to him, “Don’t you call your own owner a perfect lady?”

“Yes,” he would say uneasily, “yet her manners in repose, haven’t the perfect repose that characterises the pose of women abroad.”

By abroad he meant “Europe,” which he never would say. Europe was “the continent” to him. England, Scotland and Ireland were “home.”

“But you never were in Ireland,” I used to say to him, “how can you call it ‘home’?”

“It is in the old country,” he would reply seriously.

To come back to the ladies. Walter or Sir Walter, as he preferred being called, liked a dull, dead stillness of manner--a kind of “I’ve-just-been-to-a-funeral,” or “I’m-just-going-to-one,” air.

Now I like liveliness in women. I’ve been abroad, and though I admire Englishwomen and Scotchwomen, you can’t have as much fun with them, nor can you tell what they’re thinking about as quickly as you can read an American or a Frenchwoman. However, every dog to his liking. Give me gaiety and fun--Sir Walter can keep his goddesses and statues.

Miss Stanna just suited me to-night. Her eyes were dancing, and her little black pumps could scarcely keep on the sidewalk.

“What is the matter with you?” asked my master uneasily.

He was one of the executors of her father’s estate, and took a business, as well as a friendly interest in the family.

She didn’t say “Nothing,” as most girls would have. She said, “Everything.”

Master gave her a queer, sidelong look and said, “I heard my wife remark to-day, that it is a long time since you have been to see her.”

“I’ve been busy,” said Stanna with a ripple of a laugh.

She had stopped, and was staring hard at a big, old-fashioned mansion standing on one corner of the street we were passing. It was gloomier than ever to-night in the electric lights. Even by daylight it looked forbidding, except in front where it faced the Drive, for it was surrounded by a semi-circle of huge apartment houses.

“Who has bought that old Sweeney house?” asked my Master, as he followed her glance. “I see workmen there every day.”

“A queer man,” she said with an odd little smile, “a saloon-keeper from the Bowery.”

Didn’t I prick up my ears! Something told me that was Gringo’s master. You know dogs are very quick at understanding. I can’t explain why it is, but something inside me tells me when to jump to a conclusion, and I jump, and nearly always land on my feet.

“The Bowery,” said my master wonderingly.

“You never saw such an odd man,” she went on in a musing way, and with her eyes fixed on the dark house standing so solemnly among its lighted neighbours. “He’s not like any one I ever saw.”

“He isn’t that fellow who is being lionised because he made the fortune out of the soft drink places, is he?” asked my master.

“The same--did you ever see him?”

“Haven’t had that pleasure,” said my master dryly.

“Mrs. van der Spyten took him up, and Grandmother followed suit. He’s handsome in a cold, quiet way and, wonderful to relate--the dead image of Napoleon.”

“Napoleon and the Bowery!” said my master disdainfully.

“Grandmother can make him talk more than any one,” continued Miss Stanna. “She’s unearthed the fact that his father belonged to a good, old English family, that he married a barmaid and ran away to America, that he lived in Chicago, and had this son who seems to have lived everywhere from Chicago to Rio Janeiro.”

“Is he a gentleman?” asked my master.

The girl turned on him quickly. “Now what do you mean by a gentleman?”

“You know,” he said doggedly.

“Well, he isn’t then. He knows how to read and write, and make money, but a drawing-room throws him into a bored agony, and a dinner table is an extended nightmare to his unaccustomed spirit.”

Master shook his head, and frowned terribly.

“But fancy the sensation, Rudolph,” continued Miss Stanna, “of meeting some one to whom our tiresome conventionalities are blank and unwished-for novelties. I sat beside him the other night at dinner. Something told me he didn’t know what to do with his forks and spoons.”

“‘I dare you to eat with your knife,’ I whispered.”

“And did he?” asked my master breathlessly.

“Every morsel. Oh! the sensation. How was Grandmother going to cover that up? She had excuses for everything. ‘Ah! the poor fellow,’ she said, ‘deprived of his father at an early age, cast on the cold world, obliged to eat when and where he could, then his noble qualities asserting themselves, and bringing him back to the sphere in which he was born, where he is amply prepared to shine as one of the leading philanthropists of the day.’”

“So--that’s his pose, is it?” asked my master.

“His pose,” said the girl bursting into a laugh, “his pose--my dear Rudolph--he affirms over and over again, ‘I didn’t sell temperance drinks to reform men, I did it to make money,’ and no one believes him. He’s a hero despite himself.”

“I believe you’re going to marry him,” said my master irritably.

“That’s what Grandmother says,” remarked Miss Stanna with an angelic smile.

“I shall look into this,” said my master firmly. “We are your oldest friends. Your Grandmother and Carty are coercing you, I believe.”

Stanna didn’t speak. “There he is,” she said softly.

We all looked across the street and there--I was going to say plodding, but that is too heavy a word--walking steadfastly along the pavement, was a man of medium-height, with a sour-looking bull-dog at his heels.

“Gringo, by all that’s wonderful,” I muttered.

“We didn’t know he was going to call this evening,” murmured Stanna. “Grandmother will be distracted. She will have to go to the door.”

“You would better go home,” said my master dryly.

“No hurry,” said the girl mischievously, and she watched the man go up the steps to her house which was another one of those big, old-fashioned, detached ones, which peer out from between sky-scraping apartment houses on the Drive, like Daniels in dens of lions.

Gringo did not follow his master, but went under the steps.

“Poor Grandmother,” said Stanna a few minutes later. “He is in the library. She has run the shade away up--a storm signal. But I’m not going in yet,” and she laughed as merrily as a child.

“Yes, you will, Stanna,” said my master decidedly, “and I’m going with you. Come along.”

She shrugged her shoulders, said something in French that I did not catch, and went across the street with him.

I ran first, and looked under the steps. “Hello! Gringo, old boy--a thousand welcomes to Riverside Drive.”

The old dog’s pleasure was lovely to see. He came out, wagged his short tail, even licked me. “I feel like a cat in a strange garret up here,” he growled. “It’s fine to meet a friend. How have you been? Why didn’t you call?”

“I was planning to come to-morrow,” I said. “I’ve been in attendance on the best master a dog ever had. He keeps me with him all the time.”

“He’s no better than mine,” said Gringo shortly.

“I’m dying to see your master,” I replied. “Come in to this house. This is a place where dogs are welcome.”

Gringo was just preparing to follow me up the steps, when Sir Walter Scott stood before us--his tail rigid with disapproval.

“Good land!” muttered Gringo in my ear, “another one of these fool ’ristocrats. Mister’s gone batty on the subject of swells. I wish he’d stayed on the Bowery.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Walter Scott in his mellifluous voice. “I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

“This dog is a friend of mine, Scott,” I said bluntly, “and I believe I have the _entrée_ of your house. In insulting him, you insult me.”

Gringo was getting mad. “You high-toned dogs palaver too much. See the teeth in those jaws,” and he opened his gaping cavern of a mouth at Sir Walter Scott. “They’re my cards. I’m going in--I want to see master’s girl.”

Walter Scott stepped back with a sneer on his handsome face, and was going for a walk in a somewhat stiff-legged fashion, when Miss Stanna called, “Come in, Walter darling.”

Walter darling was in a rage, but still he remembered his manners, and stood back for Gringo and me to follow Miss Stanna into the library.

Chapter IX

I Meet Gringo Again

It was a very pleasant room. Old Mrs. Resterton hadn’t expected callers, so the fire was very low in order to save the coal. However, she was poking it, and it soon would be cheerful. There were plenty of books in long, low cases, and a nice old-rose carpet on the floor, and big easy chairs. And standing before one of those chairs was a very remarkable-looking man.

He did look like Napoleon. He was proud, and quiet and determined-looking, and his hair lay in a little wave on his forehead, just the way Napoleon’s does in his pictures. When he spoke, his voice was beautiful--low and resonant like a bell. My! my! what a look he had--like a man that had seen everything. I saw that no matter what his position in life had been, he was enormously clever.

Miss Stanna was very cool, and yet gracious with him, but her grandmother, worldly old stager as she was, could not conceal her satisfaction at his unexpected visit.

She gushed when she saw my master. “Oh! Rudolph, how opportune. I have been hoping you would drop in. How are you, and how is dear Clossie?”

He assured her that Clossie was well, and then she said, “Mr. Bonstone, this is our friend of whom I was speaking the other day--Mr. Granton.”

The two men shook hands, and looked at each other with sizing-up glances, like two dogs that may fight and may not, just as the fancy strikes them.

Gringo went under the sofa with me, and Walter Scott lay by the fire.

My! what a gossip we had. “Ain’t master the curly-headed boy,” said Gringo admiringly. “Just up and leaves the Bowery, and comes in among the swells, as cool as a cucumber. Picks the downiest peach of the lot.”

“But, Gringo,” I said uneasily. “You’ll not be at home in these higher circles. You don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand,” he growled. “Don’t I understand? Can you spring at a bull’s head, hold him, and pin him down without sweating? That’s what my ancestors used to do. I’m thoroughbred--I am. But what they went through is nothing to what I’ve gone through with these upper-crust dogs. It’s enough to break your heart. At first I took their nonsense; then I got my ginger up and just squared up to them. I don’t see any use in their darned old politeness--forever scraping and bowing, and doing the pretty. Yah! it makes me sick.”

“How does your master get on?” I asked curiously.

“Never turns a hair outside, but he’s hot under the collar--wears four a day. This indoor life wilts him, and makes him sweat like a butcher.”

“But, Gringo, I thought your master was a saloon-keeper?”

“So he is, or was. He’s given up all his saloons, and gone into real estate. He never stood behind a bar himself. He hired other men for it. He was always running the streets, making or dropping money.”

“He looks interesting,” I said, poking my nose further out from under the sofa to look at him.

“Interesting,” said Gringo scornfully, “he’s a whole bag full of men in one. Watch that eyelid of his.”

Mr. Bonstone had very fine eyes. They seemed to talk without the aid of his lips. I noticed that though he appeared to be taking his part in the conversation, he scarcely opened his mouth.

“He’s a most intelligent listener,” I said, “but why doesn’t he talk himself? Can’t he?”

“He’s afraid of making a break,” said Gringo with a sigh. “Used to gabbing with men. If he kept his mouth open, something might slip out that would frighten those two fashion-plates.”

“Does he really like Miss Stanna, or is he marrying for social position?”

“He wants her,” said Gringo emphatically, “and he wishes she was a barmaid.”

“Oh! I see--he’s a man that doesn’t want to shine in society.”

“If sassiety had one head, and master had a gun, I wouldn’t leave him alone in the room with it,” remarked Gringo shortly.

“Don’t say ‘sassiety,’ Gringo,” I corrected. “Say ‘society.’”

He growled it over in his throat several times, and at last got it right.

I was intensely interested in this affair, so I pushed my enquiries further. “Does Miss Stanna know that your master likes her for herself alone, and not because she belongs to a good old New York family?”

“Can you fool a woman?” said Gringo scornfully. “She knows all about it, and more too--but poor mister, he’s in the dark. He thinks she’s marrying him for his money, and he’s wondering whether she’ll ever be willing to leave her gang for him.”

“Why doesn’t she tell him?”

“He wouldn’t believe her now. You just hold on, she’ll work that out for herself--I wish they’d get married. I’m having the dickens of a time in an uptown hotel. The dogs are enough to make you sick.”

“Are you coming to live in this Sweeney house after the wedding?”

“You bet, and I’ll be glad to get up where it’s open, but I say, old fellow, give us a helping hand with these dogs up here, will you? Are they very stuck-up?”

“Some of them--I’ll get you good introductions.”

“You’re a nobby fellow,” said poor Gringo with a roll of his eyes at me. “You know the ropes, and I don’t. Mister’s got to be in society for a while, and I’d like to get one paw in anyway.”

“You’ll get your four feet in,” I said, rising, for I saw master bending over Mrs. Resterton’s hand. “I’ll run you as an eccentric dog of distinguished lineage.”

“You might tell them my record,” said Gringo anxiously. “I licked Blangney Boy in 1912, and Handsome Nick in 1913 and----”

“I don’t believe the fighting will count much up here,” I replied. “It will be more your manners, and how much you are worth. You’ve got to run on your master’s philanthropy, and his English ancestry. Don’t mention his barmaid mother though.”

“Barmaids and barmen are just as good as anybody,” said Gringo stoutly.

“Yes, yes, I know, but there’s a lot of temperance sentiment up here, and if you just have to talk along drinking lines, the wholesale brewery or distillery act would take better than your retail trade. Just you wait for your cue from me.”

Gringo’s eyes watered. “’Pon my word, I’m glad I met you,” he said. “If ever you want a friend just reckon on my jaws.”

“Try to make it up with Sir Walter Scott,” I said anxiously. “He’s a leader in dog society about here, though not a great favourite personally. It wasn’t really etiquette for me to force you in, but I just had to see your master.”

“I’ll not knuckle under to any dog,” said Gringo decidedly. “Take every blow like a thoroughbred is my motto, but when you once tackle, never give up till they come in and pick you up.”

“But you haven’t had any quarrel with him. Come now, go over to him and say you’ve had a pleasant call, and hope he may come to see you some day.”

Gringo hesitated, then he shuffled over to the hearth-rug.

Walter got up as he saw him approaching and presently I saw him lifting his upper lip in a dog smile. He was satisfied.

“He will be a splendid friend to you,” I whispered in Gringo’s ear, as they both approached me. “Cultivate him, cultivate him.”

For a wonder, and to my disappointment, master didn’t want to go for a further walk that evening. I was a little troubled about him, as I ran home after him. He was talking to himself, and sometimes he smiled, and sometimes he frowned.

Arrived in our apartment, where his wife received him with uplifted eyebrows, he did what he rarely did--sat down beside her for a talk. There they were each side of the little table, the electric light between them.

“Clossie,” he said, “I believe Stanna is going to be married.”

Phlegmatic as she was, the news of an engagement always excited Mrs. Granton.

“To be married,” she repeated, “to whom?”

“To a fellow called Penny Nap--he used to keep a saloon.”

“Penny Nap--is that all the name he has?”

“That is his nickname, his whole name is Norman Bonstone.”

“Stanna--Penny Nap,” echoed Mrs. Granton in a bewildered way.

“I don’t like it,” said my master crossly. “I believe the girl is being coerced. I can’t make her out; perhaps you could. Clossie, will you go to see her?”

Mrs. Clossie’s eyelids narrowed, as she stared at her husband. “Oh! certainly. You think I can find out whether she is happy about it? It’s a great thing to have Stanna happy.”

Master didn’t say anything. He was dreaming, and gazing into the fire.

The matter must have made an impression on Mrs. Granton, for the next afternoon she announced her intention of going to see the Restertons. Master telephoned, found that they would be at home, then he set out with his wife to walk the short distance to their house.

Something was the matter with the car, and it had been sent to the repair shop, unfortunately, oh! most unfortunately.

Chapter X

Master Gets Two Shocks

Master was very much pleased with his wife for gratifying him, and he kept looking kindly down at her as she waddled along the sidewalk.

She was all in fur--coat, muff and cap. Several little baby seals must have starved to death, and several mother seals must have died in agony to fit her out.

She didn’t care, for one day I saw her read a story about the cruel seal traffic, and throw it in the fire. I knew what it was, for master told her about it, and then handed it to her.

Well, just as we got opposite Stanna’s house, she started to “jay-walk” across the street, as Gringo says--that is, to cross it in the middle of a block.

Master caught her arm, and said, “Wait a minute--there are too many cars passing.”

“They’ll stop when they see us,” she said impatiently, and she pulled her arm away from him. He tried to catch her again, but she was slippery in her furs, then he got behind her, and literally tried to run her across the street.

If she had only done as he wished her to do, but she stopped short, as she saw a car bearing swiftly down upon her, and screamed.

Now I do think automobiles are driven too fast in many cases, but I have seen Louis get wild with excitement, and say that he thinks he will lose his mind over those persons who won’t use the crossings, and who get right in front of his machine in the middle of blocks.

Poor mistress, she didn’t know anything about the trials of chauffeurs, and, in a flash, right there before my eyes as I hesitated in the background, for something told me what was coming--I saw her and my dear master struck by a little coupé, rolled over and over in the dust, and finally lying quite still.

I shrieked in agony, and a silly doglet who was gazing from a window told me afterward that she nearly died laughing to see me standing with one paw uplifted as if I could help them.

The people in the coupé were nearly crazy. They jumped out, lifted my master who was merely dazed, then took up my poor mistress who was bleeding from wounds on her pretty face, hurried her into a powerful limousine that had stopped at sight of the accident, and rushed her to a hospital.

I dashed after it, and kept it in sight till we got near the hospital, where I sank on the ground, more dead than alive.

After a long, long time my master came out. A doctor took him in his car, I got in beside them, and we drove sadly home.

That was the beginning of a terribly unhappy time for my master, and a mildly unhappy one for me. The apartment was lonely without its mistress. She had been selfish and disagreeable the most of the time when she was there, but we missed her.

My master would sit and look at her empty chair, his books and papers unheeded, then he would go to the telephone.

She got over her wounds and bruises, but she didn’t want to see my master. The doctors said her mind seemed slightly affected--she had better go away off in the country for treatment.

When this happened, there was a long silence from her, broken only occasionally by a report from a physician. Weeks and weeks went by. Miss Stanna got married, and went to live in the big stone house, but master never went near her, and his only recreation was his long walks at night.

We got very near to each other in those days, and Miss Stanna, or rather Mrs. Bonstone, meeting me in the street one morning, stooped down and patted me, saying, “You are a dear Boy-Dog; I don’t know what poor Rudolph would do without you.”

This pleased me immensely, and I stuck to my dear master closer than ever. Some of his friends were losing money by the war, but his business had improved, and the more money he made, the more he gave away.

Many a poor man blessed him for the help he rendered. The unemployment was dreadful, and the ones master helped were just the ones that the agencies for poor men did not touch. One night he kept a poor fellow from drowning himself in the Hudson. Master argued with him for an hour, and finally brought him home and had him sleep in his own bed. The poor lad was a gentleman and a foreigner, and was too proud to let his people know the plight he was in.

Some nights we cut across the city to Ellen’s avenue. It did us both good to go there. That Ellen was the dearest old soul I ever saw, and I loved to talk to Beanie now. I never saw such a changed dog. We used to tramp up the six flights of stairs to her flat, and when Beanie felt that we were coming, he would fly out of Ellen’s soft lap, and stand whining at the door, so we always found them waiting for us.

Beanie was quite handsome now. He had lost much of his flesh, and had quite a slender dog figure. Some one had told Ellen how valuable he was, and she was just eaten up with pride to think that she had such a well-bred dog.

[Illustration: BEANIE WAS QUITE HANDSOME NOW]

There were a good many coloured people on the avenue, and they all petted Beanie, but instead of getting more stuck-up and proud, he had become quite a humble dog.

He used to talk to me by the hour, and tell me how kind Ellen and Robert Lee were to him. While master was talking to old Ellen, and despite himself, letting her know what some of his troubles were, Beanie would ask me questions about his dear mistress.

On this particular evening he had been talking as he often did about her accident.

“Beanie,” I said, “she wasn’t a true friend to you; why are you so sorry?”

“She brought me up,” he said. “She owned me. I can’t help loving her better than any one in the world.”

“But she is a very poor sort of a tool--now you know she is.”

“It doesn’t make any difference,” he said, shaking his head, “she was my mistress.”

“I believe you’re right,” I said, “but I’m not that kind of a dog. I can’t love persons unless I respect them.”

“Then you don’t know yet what true dog love is,” said Beanie. “I’d rather be unhappy with my dear Mrs. Granton than to be happy here with Ellen.”

“Is it because she is rich, and you like luxury?” I asked in a puzzled way.

“No, no. If Mrs. Granton were Ellen, and Ellen were Mrs. Granton, it would be all the same.”

“Well,” I said stoutly, “I’m glad you can’t live with her, for she would have killed you by this time with over-rich food.”

“I wouldn’t have minded dying for her,” said Beanie simply.

“Well,” I said, “it takes all kinds of dogs to fit the different kinds of owners,” and I ran to my own dear friend who was saying good-bye to Ellen in a depressed fashion.

Evidently he had been telling her that the blessing she had promised him had been changed into something else, for she was saying earnestly, “Sometimes the wheels of the Lord’s chariot run slow, dear Sir, sometimes fast, but dey always roll. Dey never stand still. You jes’ wait an’ hope. I feel as if somethin’ great was jes’ a-hangin’ over you now.”

Master raised his hand, and a soft light fell on his handsome face from Ellen’s single, dim gas jet--That’s another thing poor people don’t have enough of--good light.

“Ellen,” he said, “if it ever does come, I’ll remember you.”

He talked to himself a good deal, when we started on our way home. We were taking our usual route now--that is, through Morningside Park which we climbed just under Cathedral Heights. We were getting home much earlier than usual, and there was an evening service just closing in the huge church which dominates this part of the city.

As we took the path which winds round the back of it, where the workmen chip the stone all day, and will for many days to come (for it will take years to finish the structure) an exquisite sound floated out on the night air.

Through some unfinished part of the building, this boy’s voice reached us--so clear, and sweet and promising. It soared by us, and right up to the stars.

Master started, looked at first disturbed, then comforted. He stopped short, gave one backward glance at the vast tract of brightly lighted city seen from this eminence, then walked quickly toward a side door of the cathedral, near one of the exquisite little chapels.

I had often been here before with him, but always in the daytime, and he had made me wait for him outside, hidden behind some of the big blocks of stone.

However, to-night I pressed in after him, and he did not rebuke me. I knew a church was no place for dogs, but I was uneasy about my dear master, and did not want to leave him alone.

As he pushed open the swing door, such a blast of music met us. The whole thing was going now--organ and men’s voices, and it was magnificent.

Dogs like music as well as human beings do. Nothing entertains me more when I am tired than to have some lady sing and play the piano, and even a victrola is better than dead quiet.

Well, my master walked heavily in through the little door, and skirting the small chapels, went away down to the end of the church and took one of the last seats near the big doors.

There he sat down--poor, weary man, and laid his head on the back of the chair in front of him.

His soft hat rolled away in a corner, and I picked it up and put it on the seat next him. Then I sneaked in close to his feet.

He was making the low, soft noise that some people make in churches, for I have often stolen into them. This seemed to comfort him. The music rose and fell, and the boy’s voice soared and soared till in that evening hour, it seemed to be full of unnatural beauty and appeal.

It was almost dark where we were. A few of the lights high up in the cathedral were going, but we were far away, and they scarcely reached us. The organ went on after the human voices stopped--oh! the lovely music--sometimes soft and low, then high, and clear and sweet, and sometimes grumbling, like the waves of the sea in a storm.

I am only a dog, but the music told a story to me. I ran over all my past life, my ups and downs, my sorrows and delights--and I thought, if this means so much to me, when I understand it only on the surface, what must it mean to the weary, clever human being beside me.

After a time, the organ stopped. I think the organist had been having a good time to himself after the choir-boys had gone. Then a very strange thing happened. A voice sounded through the cathedral--a warm, persuasive voice, addressing all that army of vacant chairs.

My master started, and raised his head for a minute. Then it sank again. Afterward, I heard the explanation. A preacher who had come from a long way off, had heard of the teasing echo in the cathedral, and he was testing his voice. Every word he said seemed to be repeated. The immense building now looks as if it were cut in two, for it is only half finished. When it is quite done in years to come, the echo, it is said, will disappear.

I did not understand the words, but my master did. He listened intently, and I, who had got to know him so well, knew that a change was coming over his spirit. He was being comforted.

After a while the preacher followed the organist, and left the cathedral, but still my master did not go home. I might have pulled his coat and reminded him of the passage of time, but I judged that this was not a case for my interference. I kept curled up on his feet, so they would not get chilled from the stone pavement, and there we sat, hour after hour, till I fell asleep.

After a time I felt his feet stirring, then he got up, found his hat, and groping his way to the big doors, began to walk up and down, up and down, very slowly and thoughtfully. I went to a corner and lay down, and it did not seem very long before the doors were opened for an early service. We were free. I gave him a long, searching glance, as we emerged from the cathedral grounds to broad Amsterdam Avenue. He was a different man. Something had happened in the church.

With a firm, free stride, he struck across the avenue, past Columbia University and Broadway to the Drive. He was in a terrible hurry to get home.

“Boy,” he said looking down at me with a light on his face I had not seen there since the accident to my mistress, “it’s all right now--happiness or sorrow. I shall not repine, but I feel as if we were going to receive good news.”

I was so glad he said “we” and not “I.” It made me feel a part of his family. I had to run to keep up with him at last. It seemed as if he could not go fast enough. When we got to the apartment house, and he entered the elevator which was always too speedy a one for my comfort, he acted as if he thought it was going slowly.

He whipped out his latch-key, and stepped very quickly to the parlour, and there on the table that always stood between him and his wife, lay a telegram.

Chapter XI

Napoleon And The Wasp

He tore open the telegram, exclaimed “Thank God,” clapped his hat on, slammed the door in my face, and was gone--all inside a minute.

What had happened, that he had forgotten me? I screamed with rage and disappointment, and scratched at the door, a thing I rarely do, for nothing makes human beings so annoyed as to have their doors marked by dogs.

The cook and the waitress came running from the kitchen. They were very good friends of mine, for I took care to treat them with the respect and consideration that every well-bred dog should show to servants. I always wiped my feet on muddy days, and I never went into the kitchen without an invitation.

“Bless the beast--what’s up with him?” exclaimed cook.

“Something, you may be sure,” said the waitress. “He’s got sense, that dog has. I guess the old man has gone and left him.”

I pulled cook’s cotton dress with my teeth. I led her to the telegram, and nosed it over to her. Alas! I could not read it. That bit of paper had driven master from his home.

Cook caught it up, and then gave a screech. “She’s gone and done it--doesn’t that jostle you!”

What had who done--mistress I supposed--why didn’t she tell me, and I whined and howled; but they paid no attention to me till Louis came in for his orders, as he usually did at this time in the morning, not sauntering, but hurrying and breathing heavily as if he too were excited.

There was a queer smirk on his face, and he opened his mouth to speak, but he had no chance to say anything for the two women just yelled at him, “We’ve got a baby--we’re just like other folks--read that--ain’t it the superfine!”

Now I thought I would go crazy. I barked, and jumped, and screamed, and no one rebuked me.

Cook sat down in mistress’s chair and fanned herself with her apron, Annie the waitress took master’s chair and drummed her fingers on the table, and Louis sat on the fender-stool with his cap on and whistled.

“Let’s have our coffee in here,” said cook, so they had a lovely time by the fire, and talked about the coming of the baby, and how it would turn the family topsy-turvy.

“The old man wasn’t in last night, was he?” remarked Louis.

“No,” said cook, “he wasn’t--something new for him.”

“That kid elevator boy gave me some mouth about it,” said Louis sheepishly.

“What did he say?” asked Annie.

“Grinned like a fool, and asked me where my old man got that dust on his coat and hat.”

I whined eagerly. Oh, if I could only speak, and tell them it was cathedral dust. Rich people don’t know what sharp-eyed critics they have in their dogs, and cats and servants.

“I hope you gave him a smack,” said Annie.

“Bet yer life, didn’t I,” said Louis. “Says I, ‘Young feller, if my old man was out all night, he in no mischief were--he ain’t that colour--see!’ and I digged him under the ribs.”

Cook and Annie shrieked with laughter, and said they’d have their dig at the elevator boy too, then finally they all went to their work. Cook invited me politely to sit in the kitchen, but after my breakfast I ran to master’s room and sat on the window seat looking up and down the Drive. I waited for him till late in the afternoon. Then I knew he would be better pleased to have me taking the air, so I ran to the hall door, and barked till Annie opened it. The elevator boy took me down below, and the door-man let me out on the sidewalk.

It was a pleasant day with a brisk wind sweeping in off the Hudson. Many nurses and children were out, and many dogs. I knew all the canines in this neighbourhood by sight now, and had a speaking acquaintance with all those worth knowing. I ran into one of the little parks, and there saw a group of dogs without leashes who were standing talking together, and gazing at a Dachshund who was conceitedly staring in what he thought was the direction of Germany, but what was really Hoboken.

“Good afternoon, boys,” I said, “what’s the news?”

“We’re just deciding which of us shall have the pleasure of licking that hyphenated-American dog,” said a handsome, black French bulldog. “For days he’s been pushing that griffon Bruxelles about, and some of us think it’s time for us to stand up for the Belgian dog. To-day, the news of the war has been very good for the Germans, and the Dachshund has been positively unbearable.”

“I’d like to have the honour of settling him,” said an Irish wolfhound, “but the odds wouldn’t be even.”

A Scotch terrier bristled up, “I maunna, canna, winna yield the privilege to none. I hae it.”

“It’s mine,” said a Welsh terrier angrily.

I burst out laughing. “Fight him if you like. You’ll fight me after.”

They stared at me, and the Dachshund threw me a grateful glance.

“This is a free country for dogs as well as men,” I said. “Let him talk. Don’t listen, if you don’t like what he says.”

“Are you a pro-German?” enquired an English bulldog furiously.

“If you are, I’ll chew you up,” an Irish terrier seconded him.

In reality, I am a dog that is for the Allies, but I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of telling them.

“Gentlemen dogs,” I said, “I’m not talking about who I’m for, or who I’m against----”

“You should say ‘whom,’” interjected an English setter who was a great purist as regards dog language.

“Thank you,” I said bowing to him, “I’m for free speech. Say what you like, as long as you’re not insulting.”

“He was insulting,” said the whole group of dogs. “He said that Riverside Drive would soon be German.”

“That’s not insulting,” I replied, “why, that’s flattering. Think what a nice place it must be, if the Germans want it.”

Every dog showed his teeth--I don’t know what the upshot would have been, if their various owners had not called them and put their muzzles on. While we had been gossiping, the ladies had been talking together. They were very nice ladies, and law-abiding in general, but they did so hate the muzzle law, and were so sorry to see their poor dogs pawing their noses in misery, that they had the habit of carrying the muzzles in their hands, and slipping them on the dogs when they saw a policeman coming. It certainly was absurd to see baby spaniels, and toy dogs of all kinds with muzzles on their tiny noses. They couldn’t have bitten hard if they had tried.

As the dogs who had been growling about the Dachshund left, they threw furious backward glances at the conceited little scamp who ran up to me, and licked gratefully a little piece of mud off my back.

“_Danke schön_,” he murmured.

“Can’t you control yourself a bit?” I asked, “and not be so indiscreet? There wasn’t a German dog in that crowd. You’d have had a bite or two, if I hadn’t come along.”

“It was for the Fatherland,” he exclaimed, “and the sacred domestic hearth prized by dogs as well as men.”

“You say that like a little parrot,” I remarked, “and I don’t believe you bullied that griffon on your own responsibility. You’ve always been a good dog up to within a week. Who’s been coaching you?”

The little dog instead of answering, looked mad, and nipped me quite quickly on the hind leg.

“Oh! you saucy hyphen,” I said--his name was Grosvater-Leinchen, and I rolled him over and over a few times in the dust, like a little four-legged worm.

He got up, looking very dusty, and shook himself.

“Who’s been debauching you?” I said fiercely. “Come on now--I can bite as well as any dog,” and I showed him two rows of strong teeth.

“If I make new friends, it’s no business of yours,” he said sulkily.

“Oho!” I said. “I know now. It’s that new German police dog that has come to the Drive. So he told you the patter about the domestic hearth. Now I’ll tell you something more. He’s a stranger, he doesn’t fit in here. You’re a New Yorker, and subject to the law of the Drive, which is that a dog must function.”

“I don’t know what that is,” he said irritably.

“Why, you’ve got to fit in here, and play the game. You must respect the rights of other dogs, and not impose your little Dachshund will on us. Did you ever hear of liberty, equality, fraternity?”

“No,” he said in an ugly little voice, that told me the spell of the police dog was still upon him.

“Well,” I said, “for you, that means that if the griffon gets here first, and wants the warmest patch of sunlight, you’ve got to let him have it. You’ve no business to drive him out.”

“But I’m a bigger dog,” he said in surprise, “and I’m German. He’s only a Belgian.”

“Oho! that’s it, is it?” I replied. “You think German dogs lead the universe.”

“Of course they do.”

“Well then, if they do, they ought to be perfect.”

“They are perfect,” he said in astonishment. “Didn’t you know that?”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t. I believed American dogs, and English dogs, and even coloured dogs, are just as good as German dogs, if they behave themselves.”

“You’re a socialist,” he said, “a dangerous dog.”

I stared at his ridiculous, little, short-legged swagger, as he swung up and down before me.

“Now I’m going to tell you something,” I said, “as force alone appeals to you. That little griffon belongs, as you probably know, to Mrs. Warrington whose sister married an Englishman--Lord Alstone. Now I happen to know that Lady Alstone is to arrive here to-morrow on a visit to her sister, and with her ladyship comes her English mastiff. You’re probably going to get the greatest licking a dog ever got, for the griffon and the mastiff are always very chummy, and he will be sure to tell of the treatment he has been receiving from you. A family dog will fight you far harder than outsiders like the Drive dogs.”

The Dachshund looked alarmed.

“I’m sorry for you,” I said, “_auf wiedersehen_.”

“I say,” he exclaimed hopping after me, “I don’t want to be torn to pieces.”

“How can you be,” I retorted, “you’re perfect--being a super-dog, you’ll find a way out.”

“If that mastiff hurts me, the police dog will kill him,” he said angrily.

“Ah! perhaps,” I observed. “Of course the police dog is a good size, but an English mastiff----”

The Dachshund looked still more thoughtful. “I believe I’ll let the griffon have the sunny corner in future,” he said. “After all, I’m not living in Germany. I’ll tell the police dog I’ve got to be American, as long as I’m here. If I go back to Germany, I can be German.”

“All right,” I said heartily. “That’s a wise dog. Now why don’t you run right on to the griffon’s house, and tell him that? Get your story in before the mastiff arrives.”

Off hopped Mr. Dachshund across the Drive, keeping a bright look-out for policemen, and I felt that in future he would be friendly with the griffon.

I chuckled to myself, as I ran on to the Bonstones, for that was my objective point. Evil communications corrupt good manners even in dogs.

The air was delicious. I had no muzzle on, so I went slowly, and with a wary eye for those nice men the police, who would be our best friends if it weren’t for the health commissioner. It is a great fashion with some persons to run down policemen. I always like them and firemen, and have no admiration whatever for soldiers. I hate to see things torn and mangled. Policemen and firemen try to keep things together, and I believe if every policeman in every big city had a good police dog, there would be less killing and wounding of human beings.

The New York policemen are sharp, so I had to do a good deal of dodging behind pillars and in shrubbery, and twice I had to run away down to the river bank to elude them. It was close on dinner time, when I reached the Bonstone mansion.

I ran round to the back to get in. Fortunately the chauffeur, who was a friend of Louis, knew me, and when I whined, he left the car he was cleaning in the garage, and opening a side door of the house, said, “Run in, purp--I’ll bet you’ve come to call on the bride.”

I had, and I ran through back halls and passages right up to her bed-room. She was dressing, not for her own dinner only, but for a fancy dress ball to be held in the house of a friend afterward. She looked like the most beautiful picture I ever saw. Most women don’t look like pictures, but she nearly always does. She was putting on the costume Sir Walter had told me about--the wasp creation, with the gauzy wings and fluffy flounces. The skirt was rather short, and showed pretty striped stockings--yellow and black, Sir Walter said they were. Then there were tiny little satin shoes--oh! she certainly was very gauzy, and waspy and pretty.

Miss Stanna, or perhaps I should now say Mrs. Bonstone, had a French maid dressing her--a well-trained one, for her mistress had scarcely to open her lips to give directions.

Once she murmured, “_Trop serrée_;” and another time she said, “_Les gants jaunes_.”

Her flowers were lovely--orchids that nodded like big insects, and looked the shade of her gown.

When she glided from the room, the maid, who was a merry-looking creature herself, stared after her, and said with quite an English accent, “She knows how to get herself up--the monkey.”

Her voice was kind when she said it. We dogs don’t take much stock in words; it’s the tone that counts with us.

I don’t believe Mrs. Bonstone would ever be unkind to any one, unless they deserved a good scolding, in which case I think she could give it.

Well, I travelled on behind the wasp gown down to the drawing-room. Mrs. Bonstone had greeted me politely, when I went in, but very dreamily. Her alert mind was not at present on dogs.

Sir Walter stood under the statue of a Grecian boy in the lower hall, and as usual was the essence of courtesy. He came forward to greet me, bowing his noble head politely, and never saying a word about my not having called sooner, escorted me into the fine, big room, which had been done over with furnishings in which a lot of gold glittered.

“Must have cost thousands and thousands,” I observed.

Sir Walter, who did not think it good manners to mention prices of things, and yet who felt it incumbent on him to say something, murmured merely, “The new man is princely in his generosity.”

“Where’s Gringo?” I inquired anxiously.

“Never leaves his master--look behind Mr. Bonstone’s patent leather shoes.”

Sure enough, there was old Gringo, resplendent in a new collar which seemed to worry his neck, and panting happily beside a big fire. He looked like a big, ugly, brindled splotch on the white velvet hearth rug, but attractive, so very attractive, and just brimful of originality. He wasn’t going to turn into a conventional dog, just because he had come to live on Riverside Drive.

He pricked his rose ears when he saw me, and scuffed over to nose, or rather to lip me a welcome, for his old nose had such a lay-back that it wasn’t the use to him that mine was, for example. Mr. Bonstone and his wife didn’t pay any attention to us. They were staring at each other, as if they were at some kind of new and agreeable entertainment. However, the man’s keen glance soon fell on us.

“Dog-show?” he asked agreeably. “I heard there was one going on.”

Mrs. Bonstone laughed in a healthy, happy way, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Something about us--we three dogs standing in the middle of the room, politely greeting each other, seemed to excite her risibles, till she almost lost control of herself. Or was there something back of us in her mind? I guessed the latter by the way she looked at her husband when she caught his arm and said, “Norman, let’s go in to dinner.”

The butler, who stood in the doorway, was just announcing this, the most agreeable time of the day. He was a new man, and gave me a frightful stare. I placed him as a dog-hater.

Mr. Bonstone and his wife took their dinner in almost profound silence. Whether it was the presence of the servants in the room or not, I don’t know, but they seemed to be quite happy without talking.

After dinner they went, not back to the drawing-room, but to the smoking-room, which was furnished in quiet, dull colours. There were some big, leather-covered chairs by the fire, and Mr. Bonstone sat down in one, and resting his head on the back of it, stared at the ceiling, while his wife wandered about the room.

Neither Mr. Bonstone nor my master smoked, and for that I was very thankful, for though I can stand the smell of tobacco I, like most normal dogs, do not care for the smell of anything burning. I love strong odours, but not when they are on fire.

We dogs were ordered to go to the kitchen to get some dinner, and when we came back, the Bonstones were talking, but not about anything interesting to me, so I had a little conversation with Gringo.

We were going under the table which was covered with books and magazines. Underneath was a fine Turkish rug which made the floor very comfy, and I was just going to lie down on it, when Mrs. Bonstone said politely, “Lie by the fire, Boy, you are an honoured guest.”

I had begged Sir Walter to leave us for a while. He was thoroughly exhausted, having had a twenty-mile tramp with Mr. Bonstone that afternoon, and though he urged that his duties as host demanded that he stay till my call was over, I freed him from all obligations of a social nature, and told him to run off for forty winks, and come back refreshed.

Gringo and I were not sorry to be alone. “If I could tell you, old fellow,” I whispered in his soft, well set-up ear, “how sorry I’ve been not to take you about a bit and introduce you, but my master needed me, and I was consoled by hearing that Walter Scott was doing the handsome thing by you.”

“That dog’s right on the level,” said Gringo heartily. “He’s not used to my sort. In that castle in Scotland, where he was born, there was a set of dog-nobs. He never ran with common dogs till I came, but as he said himself, ‘My dear mistress sets the pace in this house--if she accepts you, it is my duty to accept you, too.’”

“He has introduced you properly to our set, hasn’t he?” I asked eagerly.

“He has done it fine. I know the whole bunch from those babies in arms, the toy spaniels, up to the biggest mastiff that stalks the Drive.”

“And what do you think of them?”

“I hate most of them,” said Gringo stoutly, “can’t make ’em out. On the Bowery, we’re honest--if a dog likes you, you’re made aware of it. If he hates you, he lies low for you.”

“Then you think we’re deceitful up here,” I said with a troubled air.

“Deceitful ain’t the name for it. They smile and scrape, and give a polite look in the eye, but I’m dead sure they’re grinning behind my back. I’ll never like these up-town dogs. Me for the simple life and honesty.”

I said nothing. What he affirmed was partly true, but he was over-suspicious. The trouble was, his manners weren’t right, and his sub-conscious self told him he was not in his proper _milieu_.

“By the way,” he said, “I note you’re as well-known as the cops. How did you fix that with so many dogs about? You’ve not been here long.”

“I don’t know,” I said with a smile. “It’s easy for me to make friends. I don’t usually stay long in a place, and it’s get acquainted in a hurry, or not at all--a sort of ‘dogs-that-pass-in-the-night’ fashion.”

“Some day I want to swap experiences with you,” he said.

“With pleasure,” I replied.

“You like your present crib, don’t you?” he inquired.

“Rather, but I’m worried about my master just now.”

Gringo wasn’t listening to me. “Hush up, old man, for a bit,” he said anxiously. “I believe that girl is wasping master again.”

I looked over my shoulder. Mrs. Bonstone had wiggled on to the arm of the huge chair her husband was sitting in.

“Odd, isn’t it, Norman,” she was saying, “that you so love this conventional life after all your Bohemianism.”

Mr. Norman gave her a queer look from his expressive eyes, and said nothing.

“I should think you would hate evening dress and tight shoes and dinners and dances, after the prairies and South America and--the Bowery.”

“Master’s in a cold perspiration; he don’t like those things--he hates ’em as much as I do,” said Gringo indignantly, “but he thinks she likes ’em, so he keeps his mouth shut.”

In listening to him, I lost Mr. Bonstone’s reply, and Gringo went on wrathfully, “Ain’t she the limit! She sits there night after night and sticks pins in my poor boss, and he thinks she’s cute and clever.”

“I guess you don’t understand her any more than you do the Riverside dogs,” I said. “Looks to me as if she liked him.”

“Then,” replied Gringo, “why don’t she tell him so, instead of wasping his life out?”

“Gringo,” I said, “some ladies often wrap truth all round with affectations, till it’s like a little lost soul in the centre of a big ball.”

“Then give me just plain women,” said the old dog sulkily.

“Norman,” Mrs. Bonstone was saying, “how would you like to give a ball. We’ve got to return some of the hospitality that’s been showered on us.”

“Poor kid master,” groaned Gringo, “he goes to those fool shows, and watches her dancing, and buttons and unbuttons his gloves, and chokes his yawns, and thinks he’s having a good time.”

Mr. Bonstone was speaking. “Stanna--you may give a ball, or a funeral, or anything you choose. I’ll foot the bill.”

She struck her gaudy heels together, and said nothing for a long time.

Her maid came in, laid a wonderful evening cloak on the back of a chair, and withdrew.

The sight of it seemed to irritate Mrs. Bonstone, for she frowned at it, and after a time, stretched out her hand, pulled the lovely cloak from the back of the chair near her, threw it over Gringo and me, and disdainfully tucked it round us with her foot.

Gringo was nearly dead with the heat of the fire, and as he wriggled out of the cloak, he muttered wrathfully, “Why don’t the boss give her a hauling over the coals? Down on the Bowery, she’d get it, and be the better for it. The way men fetch and carry for the ladies in the ‘aileet of the bowe mond,’ makes me sick!”

I snickered at his French, then turned my attention to Mr. Bonstone who was saying quietly, “You’ve changed your mind about going to that fancy dress affair to-night, haven’t you?”

“I believe I have,” she said dreamily, and she slipped from the arm of his chair to another big one, and sinking back in it, fixed her eyes on the fire.

“Haven’t you a farm somewhere near here?” she asked presently.

An eager look came into Mr. Bonstone’s eyes. “Yes,” he said shortly. “I have.”

“Let’s pretend we’re the farmer and his wife,” she said coaxingly. “I’ve just been out to the stable, and put the hens to bed.”

Mr. Bonstone smiled. “Suppose we say hen-house,” he remarked. “Hens, as a rule, don’t sleep in the stable.”

“Well--the hen-house,” she said. “You’ve just been milking the cows.”

“I can milk,” said Mr. Bonstone, “but I don’t count on ever doing it myself.”

“Why not?” asked Mrs. Bonstone.

“Wouldn’t pay--I’d better do the head-work, and have a man attend to the cows.”

Mrs. Bonstone pressed her pretty lips together, and went on, “The horses, the cows and the hens are all asleep. What would the farmer and his wife do to amuse themselves for the evening?”

“I know what the farmer would do,” said Mr. Bonstone, “he’d tot up his accounts, read the paper, and go to bed. He’d be dead tired.”

“And what would I do?” she asked.

“You’d do likewise, if you were a real farmer’s wife,” said Mr. Bonstone. “Your feet would be so sore, you couldn’t stand on them.”

“How lovely!” she exclaimed, “to be really tired.”

“What set you out to talk about this?” he inquired curiously. “You’d never live on a farm.”

“Yes, I would,” she replied earnestly, “I’m tired of balls, I’m tired of the opera, I’m tired of dances, I’m tired of dinners, I’m tired of fine dresses--I’m tired of everything I’ve had. I want something new.”

“If you want novelty,” he said breathlessly, “I’ve got that farm--I never thought you’d go on it.”

“I want to go there,” she said. “I want to leave here. I want chickens and cows and more dogs.”

“You’d miss this life,” he said curtly.

“No, no, I would not. I long for the country--the real country--let Grandmother have this house.”

“Well, ain’t she the ice-chest,” observed Gringo severely.

Mr. Bonstone’s eyes were going round the room. I felt what he was thinking of. Worldly-wise old Mrs. Resterton would be enchanted to preside over this mansion.

“If she comes here,” he said at last, “you must come, too, when you like. You are a city girl, the country will bore you after a time.”

She made an impatient gesture. “You don’t understand. I like what you like. You despise bricks and mortar, I despise them.”

“Suppose I haven’t money enough to run two houses,” he said.

“I don’t care--I can work,” and she opened out her two tiny hands.

Mr. Bonstone said nothing, and looked down at Gringo.

“Believe me, he’s happy,” muttered the old dog in my ear. “I see it in his eyes. He thinks the Wasp is beginning to like him.”

“I thought you liked money,” said Mr. Bonstone after a long time.

“I love it,” said the Wasp promptly, “heaps of it, but I like you better.”

“He’ll have to do something now,” said Gringo anxiously. “He’s very chilly in his ways.”

A red-hot spark just then flew out of the fire on my coat, and I was very much occupied with my little burn for a few seconds. When I again turned my attention to the room, Gringo was on his feet ejaculating excitedly, “Mister’s left his chair--he’s walking, fast round the room--he’s powerfully pleased--come on, let’s join the procession,” and he g