because there are so many girls that he falls in love with that his
holiday is up before he can, so to speak, concentrate.

But in Wilton's case this was out of the question. A man does not get
over the sort of blow he had had, not, at any rate, for many years: and
we had gathered that his tragedy was comparatively recent.

I doubt if I was ever more astonished in my life than the night when he
confided in me. Why he should have chosen me as a confidant I cannot
say. I am inclined to think that I happened to be alone with him at the
psychological moment when a man must confide in somebody or burst; and
Wilton chose the lesser evil.

I was strolling along the shore after dinner, smoking a cigar and
thinking of Grace Bates, Heloise Miller, and Clarice Wembley, when I
happened upon him. It was a beautiful night, and we sat down and drank
it in for a while. The first intimation I had that all was not well
with him was when he suddenly emitted a hollow groan.

The next moment he had begun to confide.

'I'm in the deuce of a hole,' he said. 'What would you do in my
position?'

'Yes?' I said.

'I proposed to Mary Campbell this evening.'

'Congratulations.'

'Thanks. She refused me.'

'Refused you!'

'Yes - because of Amy.'

It seemed to me that the narrative required footnotes.

'Who is Amy?' I said.

'Amy is the girl - '

'Which girl?'

'The girl who died, you know. Mary had got hold of the whole story. In
fact, it was the tremendous sympathy she showed that encouraged me to
propose. If it hadn't been for that, I shouldn't have had the nerve.
I'm not fit to black her shoes.'

Odd, the poor opinion a man always has - when he is in love - of his
personal attractions. There were times when I thought of Grace Bates,
Heloise Miller, and Clarice Wembley, when I felt like one of the beasts
that perish. But then, I'm nothing to write home about, whereas the
smallest gleam of intelligence should have told Wilton that he was a
kind of Ouida guardsman.

'This evening I managed somehow to do it. She was tremendously nice
about it - said she was very fond of me and all that - but it was quite
out of the question because of Amy.'

'I don't follow this. What did she mean?'

'It's perfectly clear, if you bear in mind that Mary is the most
sensitive, spiritual, highly strung girl that ever drew breath,' said
Wilton, a little coldly. 'Her position is this: she feels that, because
of Amy, she can never have my love completely; between us there would
always be Amy's memory. It would be the same as if she married a
widower.'

'Well, widowers marry.'

'They don't marry girls like Mary.'

I couldn't help feeling that this was a bit of luck for the widowers;
but I didn't say so. One has always got to remember that opinions
differ about girls. One man's peach, so to speak, is another man's
poison. I have met men who didn't like Grace Bates, men who, if Heloise
Miller or Clarice Wembley had given them their photographs, would have
used them to cut the pages of a novel.

'Amy stands between us,' said Wilton.

I breathed a sympathetic snort. I couldn't think of anything noticeably
suitable to say.

'Stands between us,' repeated Wilton. 'And the damn silly part of the
whole thing is that there isn't any Amy. I invented her.'

'You - what!'

'Invented her. Made her up. No, I'm not mad. I had a reason. Let me
see, you come from London, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'Then you haven't any friends. It's different with me. I live in a
small country town, and everyone's my friend. I don't know what it is
about me, but for some reason, ever since I can remember, I've been
looked on as the strong man of my town, the man who's _all right_.
Am I making myself clear?'

'Not quite.'

'Well, what I am trying to get at is this. Either because I'm a strong
sort of fellow to look at, and have obviously never been sick in my
life, or because I can't help looking pretty cheerful, the whole of
Bridley-in-the-Wold seems to take it for granted that I can't possibly
have any troubles of my own, and that I am consequently fair game for
anyone who has any sort of worry. I have the sympathetic manner, and
they come to me to be cheered up. If a fellow's in love, he makes a
bee-line for me, and tells me all about it. If anyone has had a
bereavement, I am the rock on which he leans for support. Well, I'm a
patient sort of man, and, as far as Bridley-in-the-Wold is concerned, I
am willing to play the part. But a strong man does need an occasional
holiday, and I made up my mind that I would get it. Directly I got here
I saw that the same old game was going to start. Spencer Clay swooped
down on me at once. I'm as big a draw with the Spencer Clay type of
maudlin idiot as catnip is with a cat. Well, I could stand it at home,
but I was hanged if I was going to have my holiday spoiled. So I
invented Amy. Now do you see?'

'Certainly I see. And I perceive something else which you appear to
have overlooked. If Amy doesn't exist - or, rather, never did exist - she
cannot stand between you and Miss Campbell. Tell her what you have told
me, and all will be well.'

He shook his head.

'You don't know Mary. She would never forgive me. You don't know what
sympathy, what angelic sympathy, she has poured out on me about Amy. I
can't possibly tell her the whole thing was a fraud. It would make her
feel so foolish.'

'You must risk it. At the worst, you lose nothing.'

He brightened a little.

'No, that's true,' he said. 'I've half a mind to do it.'

'Make it a whole mind,' I said, 'and you win out.'

I was wrong. Sometimes I am. The trouble was, apparently, that I didn't
know Mary. I am sure Grace Bates, Heloise Miller, or Clarice Wembley
would not have acted as she did. They might have been a trifle stunned
at first, but they would soon have come round, and all would have been
joy. But with Mary, no. What took place at the interview I do not know;
but it was swiftly perceived by Marois Bay that the Wilton-Campbell
alliance was off. They no longer walked together, golfed together, and
played tennis on the same side of the net. They did not even speak to
each other.

* * * * *

The rest of the story I can speak of only from hearsay. How it became
public property, I do not know. But there was a confiding strain in
Wilton, and I imagine he confided in someone, who confided in someone
else. At any rate, it is recorded in Marois Bay's unwritten archives,
from which I now extract it.

* * * * *

For some days after the breaking-off of diplomatic relations, Wilton
seemed too pulverized to resume the offensive. He mooned about the
links by himself, playing a shocking game, and generally comported
himself like a man who has looked for the escape of gas with a lighted
candle. In affairs of love the strongest men generally behave with the
most spineless lack of resolution. Wilton weighed thirteen stone, and
his muscles were like steel cables; but he could not have shown less
pluck in this crisis in his life if he had been a poached egg. It was
pitiful to see him.

Mary, in these days, simply couldn't see that he was on the earth. She
looked round him, above him, and through him, but never at him; which
was rotten from Wilton's point of view, for he had developed a sort of
wistful expression - I am convinced that he practised it before the
mirror after his bath - which should have worked wonders, if only he
could have got action with it. But she avoided his eye as if he had
been a creditor whom she was trying to slide past on the street.

She irritated me. To let the breach widen in this way was absurd.
Wilton, when I said as much to him, said that it was due to her
wonderful sensitiveness and highly strungness, and that it was just one
more proof to him of the loftiness of her soul and her shrinking horror
of any form of deceit. In fact, he gave me the impression that, though
the affair was rending his vitals, he took a mournful pleasure in
contemplating her perfection.

Now one afternoon Wilton took his misery for a long walk along the
seashore. He tramped over the sand for some considerable time, and
finally pulled up in a little cove, backed by high cliffs and dotted
with rocks. The shore around Marois Bay is full of them.

By this time the afternoon sun had begun to be too warm for comfort,
and it struck Wilton that he could be a great deal more comfortable
nursing his wounded heart with his back against one of the rocks than
tramping any farther over the sand. Most of the Marois Bay scenery is
simply made as a setting for the nursing of a wounded heart. The cliffs
are a sombre indigo, sinister and forbidding; and even on the finest
days the sea has a curious sullen look. You have only to get away from
the crowd near the bathing-machines and reach one of these small coves
and get your book against a rock and your pipe well alight, and you can
simply wallow in misery. I have done it myself. The day when Heloise
Miller went golfing with Teddy Bingley I spent the whole afternoon in
one of these retreats. It is true that, after twenty minutes of
contemplating the breakers, I fell asleep; but that is bound to happen.

It happened to Wilton. For perhaps half an hour he brooded, and then
his pipe fell from his mouth and he dropped off into a peaceful
slumber. And time went by.

It was a touch of cramp that finally woke him. He jumped up with a
yell, and stood there massaging his calf. And he had hardly got rid of
the pain, when a startled exclamation broke the primeval stillness; and
there, on the other side of the rock, was Mary Campbell.

Now, if Wilton had had any inductive reasoning in his composition at
all, he would have been tremendously elated. A girl does not creep out
to a distant cove at Marois Bay unless she is unhappy; and if Mary
Campbell was unhappy she must be unhappy about him; and if she was
unhappy about him all he had to do was to show a bit of determination
and get the whole thing straightened out. But Wilton, whom grief had
reduced to the mental level of an oyster, did not reason this out; and
the sight of her deprived him of practically all his faculties,
including speech. He just stood there and yammered.

'Did you follow me here, Mr Wilton?' said Mary, very coldly.

He shook his head. Eventually he managed to say that he had come there
by chance, and had fallen asleep under the rock. As this was exactly
what Mary had done, she could not reasonably complain. So that
concluded the conversation for the time being. She walked away in the
direction of Marois Bay without another word, and presently he lost
sight of her round a bend in the cliffs.

His position now was exceedingly unpleasant. If she had such a distaste
for his presence, common decency made it imperative that he should give
her a good start on the homeward journey. He could not tramp along a
couple of yards in the rear all the way. So he had to remain where he
was till she had got well off the mark. And as he was wearing a thin
flannel suit, and the sun had gone in, and a chilly breeze had sprung
up, his mental troubles were practically swamped in physical
discomfort.

Just as he had decided that he could now make a move, he was surprised
to see her coming back.

Wilton really was elated at this. The construction he put on it was
that she had relented and was coming back to fling her arms round his
neck. He was just bracing himself for the clash, when he caught her
eye, and it was as cold and unfriendly as the sea.

'I must go round the other way,' she said. 'The water has come up too
far on that side.'

And she walked past him to the other end of the cove.

The prospect of another wait chilled Wilton to the marrow. The wind had
now grown simply freezing, and it came through his thin suit and roamed
about all over him in a manner that caused him exquisite discomfort. He
began to jump to keep himself warm.

He was leaping heavenwards for the hundredth time, when, chancing to
glance to one side, he perceived Mary again returning. By this time his
physical misery had so completely overcome the softer emotions in his
bosom that his only feeling now was one of thorough irritation. It was
not fair, he felt, that she should jockey at the start in this way and
keep him hanging about here catching cold. He looked at her, when she
came within range, quite balefully.

'It is impossible,' she said, 'to get round that way either.'

One grows so accustomed in this world to everything going smoothly,
that the idea of actual danger had not yet come home to her. From where
she stood in the middle of the cove, the sea looked so distant that the
fact that it had closed the only ways of getting out was at the moment
merely annoying. She felt much the same as she would have felt if she
had arrived at a station to catch a train and had been told that the
train was not running.

She therefore seated herself on a rock, and contemplated the ocean.
Wilton walked up and down. Neither showed any disposition to exercise
that gift of speech which places Man in a class of his own, above the
ox, the ass, the common wart-hog, and the rest of the lower animals. It
was only when a wave swished over the base of her rock that Mary broke
the silence.

'The tide is coming _in_' she faltered.

She looked at the sea with such altered feelings that it seemed a
different sea altogether.

There was plenty of it to look at. It filled the entire mouth of the
little bay, swirling up the sand and lashing among the rocks in a
fashion which made one thought stand out above all the others in her
mind - the recollection that she could not swim.

'Mr Wilton!'

Wilton bowed coldly.

'Mr Wilton, the tide. It's coming IN.'

Wilton glanced superciliously at the sea.

'So,' he said, 'I perceive.'

'But what shall we do?'

Wilton shrugged his shoulders. He was feeling at war with Nature and
Humanity combined. The wind had shifted a few points to the east, and
was exploring his anatomy with the skill of a qualified surgeon.

'We shall drown,' cried Miss Campbell. 'We shall drown. We shall drown.
We shall drown.'

All Wilton's resentment left him. Until he heard that pitiful wail his
only thoughts had been for himself.

'Mary!' he said, with a wealth of tenderness in his voice.

She came to him as a little child comes to its mother, and he put his
arm around her.

'Oh, Jack!'

'My darling!'

'I'm frightened!'

'My precious!'

It is in moments of peril, when the chill breath of fear blows upon our
souls, clearing them of pettiness, that we find ourselves.

She looked about her wildly.

'Could we climb the cliffs?'

'I doubt it.'

'If we called for help - '

'We could do that.'

They raised their voices, but the only answer was the crashing of the
waves and the cry of the sea-birds. The water was swirling at their
feet, and they drew back to the shelter of the cliffs. There they stood
in silence, watching.

'Mary,' said Wilton in a low voice, 'tell me one thing.'

'Yes, Jack?'

'Have you forgiven me?'

'Forgiven you! How can you ask at a moment like this? I love you with
all my heart and soul.'

He kissed her, and a strange look of peace came over his face.

'I am happy.'

'I, too.'

A fleck of foam touched her face, and she shivered.

'It was worth it,' he said quietly. 'If all misunderstandings are
cleared away and nothing can come between us again, it is a small price
to pay - unpleasant as it will be when it comes.'

'Perhaps - perhaps it will not be very unpleasant. They say that
drowning is an easy death.'

'I didn't mean drowning, dearest. I meant a cold in the head.'

'A cold in the head!'

He nodded gravely.

'I don't see how it can be avoided. You know how chilly it gets these
late summer nights. It will be a long time before we can get away.'

She laughed a shrill, unnatural laugh.

'You are talking like this to keep my courage up. You know in your
heart that there is no hope for us. Nothing can save us now. The water
will come creeping - creeping - '

'Let it creep! It can't get past that rock there.'

'What do you mean?'

'It can't. The tide doesn't come up any farther. I know, because I was
caught here last week.'

For a moment she looked at him without speaking. Then she uttered a cry
in which relief, surprise, and indignation were so nicely blended that
it would have been impossible to say which predominated.

He was eyeing the approaching waters with an indulgent smile.

'Why didn't you tell me?' she cried.

'I did tell you.'

'You know what I mean. Why did you let me go on thinking we were in
danger, when - '

'We _were_ in danger. We shall probably get pneumonia.'

'Isch!'

'There! You're sneezing already.'

'I am not sneezing. That was an exclamation of disgust.'

'It sounded like a sneeze. It must have been, for you've every reason
to sneeze, but why you should utter exclamations of disgust I cannot
imagine.'

'I'm disgusted with you - with your meanness. You deliberately tricked
me into saying - '

'Saying - '

She was silent.

'What you said was that you loved me with all your heart and soul. You
can't get away from that, and it's good enough for me.'

'Well, it's not true any longer.'

'Yes, it is,' said Wilton, comfortably; 'bless it.'

'It is not. I'm going right away now, and I shall never speak to you
again.'

She moved away from him, and prepared to sit down.

'There's a jelly-fish just where you're going to sit,' said Wilton.

'I don't care.'

'It will. I speak from experience, as one on whom you have sat so
often.'

'I'm not amused.'

'Have patience. I can be funnier than that.'

'Please don't talk to me.'

'Very well.'

She seated herself with her back to him. Dignity demanded reprisals, so
he seated himself with his back to her; and the futile ocean raged
towards them, and the wind grew chillier every minute.

Time passed. Darkness fell. The little bay became a black cavern,
dotted here and there with white, where the breeze whipped the surface
of the water.

Wilton sighed. It was lonely sitting there all by himself. How much
jollier it would have been if -

A hand touched his shoulder, and a voice spoke - meekly.

'Jack, dear, it - it's awfully cold. Don't you think if we were
to - snuggle up - '

He reached out and folded her in an embrace which would have aroused
the professional enthusiasm of Hackenschmidt and drawn guttural
congratulations from Zbysco. She creaked, but did not crack, beneath
the strain.

'That's much nicer,' she said, softly. 'Jack, I don't think the tide's
started even to think of going down yet.'

'I hope not,' said Wilton.


THE MIXER


I. _He Meets a Shy Gentleman_

Looking back, I always consider that my career as a dog proper really
started when I was bought for the sum of half a crown by the Shy Man.
That event marked the end of my puppyhood. The knowledge that I was
worth actual cash to somebody filled me with a sense of new
responsibilities. It sobered me. Besides, it was only after that
half-crown changed hands that I went out into the great world; and,
however interesting life may be in an East End public-house, it is only
when you go out into the world that you really broaden your mind and
begin to see things.

Within its limitations, my life had been singularly full and vivid. I
was born, as I say, in a public-house in the East End, and, however
lacking a public-house may be in refinement and the true culture, it
certainly provides plenty of excitement. Before I was six weeks old I
had upset three policemen by getting between their legs when they came
round to the side-door, thinking they had heard suspicious noises; and
I can still recall the interesting sensation of being chased seventeen
times round the yard with a broom-handle after a well-planned and
completely successful raid on the larder. These and other happenings of
a like nature soothed for the moment but could not cure the
restlessness which has always been so marked a trait in my character. I
have always been restless, unable to settle down in one place and
anxious to get on to the next thing. This may be due to a gipsy strain
in my ancestry - one of my uncles travelled with a circus - or it may be
the Artistic Temperament, acquired from a grandfather who, before dying
of a surfeit of paste in the property-room of the Bristol Coliseum,
which he was visiting in the course of a professional tour, had an
established reputation on the music-hall stage as one of Professor
Pond's Performing Poodles.

I owe the fullness and variety of my life to this restlessness of mine,
for I have repeatedly left comfortable homes in order to follow some
perfect stranger who looked as if he were on his way to somewhere
interesting. Sometimes I think I must have cat blood in me.

The Shy Man came into our yard one afternoon in April, while I was
sleeping with mother in the sun on an old sweater which we had borrowed
from Fred, one of the barmen. I heard mother growl, but I didn't take
any notice. Mother is what they call a good watch-dog, and she growls
at everybody except master. At first, when she used to do it, I would
get up and bark my head off, but not now. Life's too short to bark at
everybody who comes into our yard. It is behind the public-house, and
they keep empty bottles and things there, so people are always coming
and going.

Besides, I was tired. I had had a very busy morning, helping the men
bring in a lot of cases of beer, and running into the saloon to talk to
Fred and generally looking after things. So I was just dozing off
again, when I heard a voice say, 'Well, he's ugly enough!' Then I knew
that they were talking about me.

I have never disguised it from myself, and nobody has ever disguised it
from me, that I am not a handsome dog. Even mother never thought me
beautiful. She was no Gladys Cooper herself, but she never hesitated to
criticize my appearance. In fact, I have yet to meet anyone who did.
The first thing strangers say about me is, 'What an ugly dog!'

I don't know what I am. I have a bulldog kind of a face, but the rest
of me is terrier. I have a long tail which sticks straight up in the
air. My hair is wiry. My eyes are brown. I am jet black, with a white
chest. I once overheard Fred saying that I was a Gorgonzola
cheese-hound, and I have generally found Fred reliable in his
statements.

When I found that I was under discussion, I opened my eyes. Master was
standing there, looking down at me, and by his side the man who had
just said I was ugly enough. The man was a thin man, about the age of a
barman and smaller than a policeman. He had patched brown shoes and
black trousers.

'But he's got a sweet nature,' said master.

This was true, luckily for me. Mother always said, 'A dog without
influence or private means, if he is to make his way in the world, must
have either good looks or amiability.' But, according to her, I overdid
it. 'A dog,' she used to say, 'can have a good heart, without chumming
with every Tom, Dick, and Harry he meets. Your behaviour is sometimes
quite un-doglike.' Mother prided herself on being a one-man dog. She
kept herself to herself, and wouldn't kiss anybody except master - not
even Fred.

Now, I'm a mixer. I can't help it. It's my nature. I like men. I like
the taste of their boots, the smell of their legs, and the sound of
their voices. It may be weak of me, but a man has only to speak to me
and a sort of thrill goes right down my spine and sets my tail wagging.

I wagged it now. The man looked at me rather distantly. He didn't pat
me. I suspected - what I afterwards found to be the case - that he was
shy, so I jumped up at him to put him at his ease. Mother growled
again. I felt that she did not approve.

'Why, he's took quite a fancy to you already,' said master.

The man didn't say a word. He seemed to be brooding on something. He
was one of those silent men. He reminded me of Joe, the old dog down
the street at the grocer's shop, who lies at the door all day, blinking
and not speaking to anybody.

Master began to talk about me. It surprised me, the way he praised me.
I hadn't a suspicion he admired me so much. From what he said you would
have thought I had won prizes and ribbons at the Crystal Palace. But
the man didn't seem to be impressed. He kept on saying nothing.

When master had finished telling him what a wonderful dog I was till I
blushed, the man spoke.

'Less of it,' he said. 'Half a crown is my bid, and if he was an angel
from on high you couldn't get another ha'penny out of me. What about
it?'

A thrill went down my spine and out at my tail, for of course I saw now
what was happening. The man wanted to buy me and take me away. I looked
at master hopefully.

'He's more like a son to me than a dog,' said master, sort of wistful.

'It's his face that makes you feel that way,' said the man,
unsympathetically. 'If you had a son that's just how he would look.
Half a crown is my offer, and I'm in a hurry.'

'All right,' said master, with a sigh, 'though it's giving him away, a
valuable dog like that. Where's your half-crown?'

The man got a bit of rope and tied it round my neck.

I could hear mother barking advice and telling me to be a credit to the
family, but I was too excited to listen.

'Good-bye, mother,' I said. 'Good-bye, master. Good-bye, Fred. Good-bye
everybody. I'm off to see life. The Shy Man has bought me for half a
crown. Wow!'

I kept running round in circles and shouting, till the man gave me a
kick and told me to stop it.

So I did.

I don't know where we went, but it was a long way. I had never been off
our street before in my life and I didn't know the whole world was half
as big as that. We walked on and on, and the man jerked at my rope
whenever I wanted to stop and look at anything. He wouldn't even let me
pass the time of the day with dogs we met.

When we had gone about a hundred miles and were just going to turn in
at a dark doorway, a policeman suddenly stopped the man. I could feel
by the way the man pulled at my rope and tried to hurry on that he
didn't want to speak to the policeman. The more I saw of the man the
more I saw how shy he was.

'Hi!' said the policeman, and we had to stop.

'I've got a message for you, old pal,' said the policeman. 'It's from
the Board of Health. They told me to tell you you needed a change of
air. See?'

'All right!' said the man.

'And take it as soon as you like. Else you'll find you'll get it given
you. See?'

I looked at the man with a good deal of respect. He was evidently
someone very important, if they worried so about his health.

'I'm going down to the country tonight,' said the man.

The policeman seemed pleased.

'That's a bit of luck for the country,' he said. 'Don't go changing
your mind.'

And we walked on, and went in at the dark doorway, and climbed about a
million stairs and went into a room that smelt of rats. The man sat
down and swore a little, and I sat and looked at him.

Presently I couldn't keep it in any longer.

'Do we live here?' I said. 'Is it true we're going to the country?
Wasn't that policeman a good sort? Don't you like policemen? I knew
lots of policemen at the public-house. Are there any other dogs here?
What is there for dinner? What's in that cupboard? When are you going
to take me out for another run? May I go out and see if I can find a
cat?'

'Stop that yelping,' he said.

'When we go to the country, where shall we live? Are you going to be a
caretaker at a house? Fred's father is a caretaker at a big house in
Kent. I've heard Fred talk about it. You didn't meet Fred when you came
to the public-house, did you? You would like Fred. I like Fred. Mother
likes Fred. We all like Fred.'

I was going on to tell him a lot more about Fred, who had always been
one of my warmest friends, when he suddenly got hold of a stick and
walloped me with it.

'You keep quiet when you're told,' he said.

He really was the shyest man I had ever met. It seemed to hurt him to
be spoken to. However, he was the boss, and I had to humour him, so I
didn't say any more.

We went down to the country that night, just as the man had told the
policeman we would. I was all worked up, for I had heard so much about
the country from Fred that I had always wanted to go there. Fred used
to go off on a motor-bicycle sometimes to spend the night with his
father in Kent, and once he brought back a squirrel with him, which I
thought was for me to eat, but mother said no. 'The first thing a dog
has to learn,' mother used often to say, 'is that the whole world
wasn't created for him to eat.'

It was quite dark when we got to the country, but the man seemed to
know where to go. He pulled at my rope, and we began to walk along a
road with no people in it at all. We walked on and on, but it was all
so new to me that I forgot how tired I was. I could feel my mind
broadening with every step I took.

Every now and then we would pass a very big house, which looked as if
it was empty, but I knew that there was a caretaker inside, because of
Fred's father. These big houses belong to very rich people, but they
don't want to live in them till the summer, so they put in caretakers,
and the caretakers have a dog to keep off burglars. I wondered if that
was what I had been brought here for.

'Are you going to be a caretaker?' I asked the man.

'Shut up,' he said.

So I shut up.

After we had been walking a long rime, we came to a cottage. A man came
out. My man seemed to know him, for he called him Bill. I was quite
surprised to see the man was not at all shy with Bill. They seemed very
friendly.

'Is that him?' said Bill, looking at me.

'Bought him this afternoon,' said the man.

'Well,' said Bill, 'he's ugly enough. He looks fierce. If you want a
dog, he's the sort of dog you want. But what do you want one for? It
seems to me it's a lot of trouble to take, when there's no need of any
trouble at all. Why not do what I've always wanted to do? What's wrong
with just fixing the dog, same as it's always done, and walking in and
helping yourself?'

'I'll tell you what's wrong,' said the man. 'To start with, you can't
get at the dog to fix him except by day, when they let him out. At
night he's shut up inside the house. And suppose you do fix him during
the day what happens then? Either the bloke gets another before night,
or else he sits up all night with a gun. It isn't like as if these
blokes was ordinary blokes. They're down here to look after the house.
That's their job, and they don't take any chances.'

It was the longest speech I had ever heard the man make, and it seemed
to impress Bill. He was quite humble.

'I didn't think of that,' he said. 'We'd best start in to train this
tyke at once.'

Mother often used to say, when I went on about wanting to go out into
the world and see life, 'You'll be sorry when you do. The world isn't
all bones and liver.' And I hadn't been living with the man and Bill in
their cottage long before I found out how right she was.

It was the man's shyness that made all the trouble. It seemed as if he
hated to be taken notice of.

It started on my very first night at the cottage. I had fallen asleep
in the kitchen, tired out after all the excitement of the day and the
long walks I had had, when something woke me with a start. It was
somebody scratching at the window, trying to get in.

Well, I ask you, I ask any dog, what would you have done in my place?
Ever since I was old enough to listen, mother had told me over and over
again what I must do in a case like this. It is the A B C of a dog's
education. 'If you are in a room and you hear anyone trying to get in,'
mother used to say, 'bark. It may be someone who has business there, or
it may not. Bark first, and inquire afterwards. Dogs were made to be
heard and not seen.'

I lifted my head and yelled, I have a good, deep voice, due to a hound
strain in my pedigree, and at the public-house, when there was a full
moon, I have often had people leaning out of the windows and saying
things all down the street. I took a deep breath and let it go.

'Man!' I shouted. 'Bill! Man! Come quick! Here's a burglar getting in!'

Then somebody struck a light, and it was the man himself. He had come
in through the window.

He picked up a stick, and he walloped me. I couldn't understand it. I
couldn't see where I had done the wrong thing. But he was the boss, so
there was nothing to be said.

If you'll believe me, that same thing happened every night. Every
single night! And sometimes twice or three times before morning. And
every time I would bark my loudest and the man would strike a light and
wallop me. The thing was baffling. I couldn't possibly have mistaken
what mother had said to me. She said it too often for that. Bark! Bark!
Bark! It was the main plank of her whole system of education. And yet,
here I was, getting walloped every night for doing it.

I thought it out till my head ached, and finally I got it right. I
began to see that mother's outlook was narrow. No doubt, living with a
man like master at the public-house, a man without a trace of shyness
in his composition, barking was all right. But circumstances alter
cases. I belonged to a man who was a mass of nerves, who got the jumps
if you spoke to him. What I had to do was to forget the training I had
had from mother, sound as it no doubt was as a general thing, and to
adapt myself to the needs of the particular man who had happened to buy
me. I had tried mother's way, and all it had brought me was walloping,
so now I would think for myself.

So next night, when I heard the window go, I lay there without a word,
though it went against all my better feelings. I didn't even growl.
Someone came in and moved about in the dark, with a lantern, but,
though I smelt that it was the man, I didn't ask him a single question.
And presently the man lit a light and came over to me and gave me a
pat, which was a thing he had never done before.

'Good dog!' he said. 'Now you can have this.'

And he let me lick out the saucepan in which the dinner had been
cooked.

After that, we got on fine. Whenever I heard anyone at the window I
just kept curled up and took no notice, and every time I got a bone or
something good. It was easy, once you had got the hang of things.'

It was about a week after that the man took me out one morning, and we
walked a long way till we turned in at some big gates and went along a
very smooth road till we came to a great house, standing all by itself
in the middle of a whole lot of country. There was a big lawn in front
of it, and all round there were fields and trees, and at the back a
great wood.

The man rang a bell, and the door opened, and an old man came out.

'Well?' he said, not very cordially.

'I thought you might want to buy a good watch-dog,' said the man.

'Well, that's queer, your saying that,' said the caretaker. 'It's a
coincidence. That's exactly what I do want to buy. I was just thinking
of going along and trying to get one. My old dog picked up something
this morning that he oughtn't to have, and he's dead, poor feller.'

'Poor feller,' said the man. 'Found an old bone with phosphorus on it,
I guess.'

'What do you want for this one?'

'Five shillings.'

'Is he a good watch-dog?'

'He's a grand watch-dog.'

'He looks fierce enough.'

'Ah!'

So the caretaker gave the man his five shillings, and the man went off
and left me.

At first the newness of everything and the unaccustomed smells and
getting to know the caretaker, who was a nice old man, prevented my
missing the man, but as the day went on and I began to realize that he
had gone and would never come back, I got very depressed. I pattered
all over the house, whining. It was a most interesting house, bigger
than I thought a house could possibly be, but it couldn't cheer me up.
You may think it strange that I should pine for the man, after all the
wallopings he had given me, and it is odd, when you come to think of
it. But dogs are dogs, and they are built like that. By the time it was
evening I was thoroughly miserable. I found a shoe and an old
clothes-brush in one of the rooms, but could eat nothing. I just sat
and moped.

It's a funny thing, but it seems as if it always happened that just
when you are feeling most miserable, something nice happens. As I sat
there, there came from outside the sound of a motor-bicycle, and
somebody shouted.

It was dear old Fred, my old pal Fred, the best old boy that ever
stepped. I recognized his voice in a second, and I was scratching at
the door before the old man had time to get up out of his chair.

Well, well, well! That was a pleasant surprise! I ran five times round
the lawn without stopping, and then I came back and jumped up at him.

'What are you doing down here, Fred?' I said. 'Is this caretaker your
father? Have you seen the rabbits in the wood? How long are you going
to stop? How's mother? I like the country. Have you come all the way
from the public-house? I'm living here now. Your father gave five
shillings for me. That's twice as much as I was worth when I saw you
last.'

'Why, it's young Nigger!' That was what they called me at the saloon.
'What are you doing here? Where did you get this dog, father?'

'A man sold him to me this morning. Poor old Bob got poisoned. This one
ought to be just as good a watch-dog. He barks loud enough.'

'He should be. His mother is the best watch-dog in London. This
cheese-hound used to belong to the boss. Funny him getting down here.'

We went into the house and had supper. And after supper we sat and
talked. Fred was only down for the night, he said, because the boss
wanted him back next day.

'And I'd sooner have my job, than yours, dad,' he said. 'Of all the
lonely places! I wonder you aren't scared of burglars.'

'I've my shot-gun, and there's the dog. I might be scared if it wasn't
for him, but he kind of gives me confidence. Old Bob was the same. Dogs
are a comfort in the country.'

'Get many tramps here?'

'I've only seen one in two months, and that's the feller who sold me
the dog here.'

As they were talking about the man, I asked Fred if he knew him. They
might have met at the public-house, when the man was buying me from the
boss.

'You would like him,' I said. 'I wish you could have met.'

They both looked at me.

'What's he growling at?' asked Fred. 'Think he heard something?'

The old man laughed.

'He wasn't growling. He was talking in his sleep. You're nervous, Fred.
It comes of living in the city.'

'Well, I am. I like this place in the daytime, but it gives me the pip
at night. It's so quiet. How you can stand it here all the time, I
can't understand. Two nights of it would have me seeing things.'

His father laughed.

'If you feel like that, Fred, you had better take the gun to bed with
you. I shall be quite happy without it.'

'I will,' said Fred. 'I'll take six if you've got them.'

And after that they went upstairs. I had a basket in the hall, which
had belonged to Bob, the dog who had got poisoned. It was a comfortable
basket, but I was so excited at having met Fred again that I couldn't
sleep. Besides, there was a smell of mice somewhere, and I had to move
around, trying to place it.

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