第60章

ON THE PLAYING OF MARCHES AT THE FUNERALS OF MARIONETTES

He began the day badly.He took me out and lost me.It would be so much better, would he consent to the usual arrangement, and allow me to take him out.I am far the abler leader: I say it without conceit.I am older than he is, and I am less excitable.I do not stop and talk with every person I meet, and then forget where I am.

I do less to distract myself: I rarely fight, I never feel I want to run after cats, I take but little pleasure in frightening children.I have nothing to think about but the walk, and the getting home again.If, as I say, he would give up taking me out, and let me take him out, there would be less trouble all round.But into this I have never been able to persuade him.

He had mislaid me once or twice, but in Sloane Square he lost me entirely.When he loses me, he stands and barks for me.If only he would remain where he first barked, I might find my way to him; but, before I can cross the road, he is barking half-way down the next street.I am not so young as I was and I sometimes think he exercises me more than is good for me.I could see him from where Iwas standing in the King's Road.Evidently he was most indignant.

I was too far off to distinguish the barks, but I could guess what he was saying--"Damn that man, he's off again."

He made inquiries of a passing dog--

"You haven't smelt my man about anywhere, have you?"(A dog, of course, would never speak of SEEING anybody or anything, smell being his leading sense.Reaching the top of a hill, he would say to his companion--"Lovely smell from here, I always think; Icould sit and sniff here all the afternoon." Or, proposing a walk, he would say--"I like the road by the canal, don't you? There's something interesting to catch your nose at every turn.")"No, I haven't smelt any man in particular," answered the other dog.

"What sort of a smelling man is yours?"

"Oh, an egg-and-bacony sort of a man, with a dash of soap about him.""That's nothing to go by," retorted the other; "most men would answer to that description, this time of the morning.Where were you when you last noticed him?"At this moment he caught sight of me, and came up, pleased to find me, but vexed with me for having got lost.

"Oh, here you are," he barked; "didn't you see me go round the corner? Do keep closer.Bothered if half my time isn't taken up, finding you and losing you again."The incident appeared to have made him bad-tempered; he was just in the humour for a row of any sort.At the top of Sloane Street a stout military-looking gentleman started running after the Chelsea bus.With a "Hooroo" William Smith was after him.Had the old gentleman taken no notice, all would have been well.A butcher boy, driving just behind, would--I could read it in his eye--have caught Smith a flick as he darted into the road, which would have served him right; the old gentleman would have captured his bus; and the affair would have been ended.Unfortunately, he was that type of retired military man all gout and curry and no sense.He stopped to swear at the dog.That, of course, was what Smith wanted.It is not often he gets a scrimmage with a full-grown man."They're a poor-spirited lot, most of them," he thinks; "they won't even answer you back.I like a man who shows a bit of pluck." He was frenzied with delight at his success.He flew round his victim, weaving whooping circles and curves that paralyzed the old gentleman as though they had been the mystic figures of a Merlin.The colonel clubbed his umbrella, and attempted to defend himself.I called to the dog, I gave good advice to the colonel (I judged him to be a colonel; the louder he spoke, the less one could understand him), but both were too excited to listen to me.A sympathetic bus driver leaned over, and whispered hoarse counsel.

"Ketch 'im by the tail, sir," he advised the old gentleman; "don't you be afraid of him; you ketch 'im firmly by the tail."A milkman, on the other hand, sought rather to encourage Smith, shouting as he passed--"Good dog, kill him!"

A child, brained within an inch by the old gentleman's umbrella, began to cry.The nurse told the old gentleman he was a fool--a remark which struck me as singularly apt The old gentleman gasped back that perambulators were illegal on the pavement; and, between his exercises, inquired after myself.A crowd began to collect; and a policeman strolled up.

It was not the right thing: I do not defend myself; but, at this point, the temptation came to me to desert William Smith.He likes a street row, I don't.These things are matters of temperament.Ihave also noticed that he has the happy instinct of knowing when to disappear from a crisis, and the ability to do so; mysteriously turning up, quarter of a mile off, clad in a peaceful and pre-occupied air, and to all appearances another and a better dog.

Consoling myself with the reflection that I could be of no practical assistance to him and remembering with some satisfaction that, by a fortunate accident, he was without his collar, which bears my name and address, I slipped round the off side of a Vauxhall bus, making no attempt at ostentation, and worked my way home through Lowndes Square and the Park.

Five minutes after I had sat down to lunch, he flung open the dining-room door, and marched in.It is his customary "entrance."In a previous state of existence, his soul was probably that of an Actor-Manager.

From his exuberant self-satisfaction, I was inclined to think he must have succeeded in following the milkman's advice; at all events, I have not seen the colonel since.His bad temper had disappeared, but his "uppishness" had, if possible, increased.