My Doggie and I by Robert Michael Ballantyne (young adult books to read .TXT) 📖

on us don't think it so wretched arter all," he continued. "There's the Slogger, now, he won't go into the 'ome on no consideration; says he wouldn't give a empty sugar-barrel for all the 'omes in London. But then the Slogger's a lazy muff. He don't want to work--that's about it. He'd sooner starve than work. By consikence he steals, more or less, an finds a 'ome in the `stone jug' pretty frequent. As to his taste for a sugar-barrel, I ain't so sure that I don't agree with 'im. It's big, you know--plenty of room to move, w'ich it ain't so with a flour-barrel. An' then the smell! Oh! you've no notion! W'y, that's wuth the price of a night's lodgin' itself, to say nothin' o' the chance of a knot-hole or a crack full o' sugar, that the former tenants has failed to diskiver."

While the waif was commenting thus enthusiastically on the bliss of lodging in a sugar-barrel, we were surprised to see Dumps, who chanced to be trotting on in front come to a sudden pause and gaze at a lady who was in the act of ringing the door-bell of an adjoining house.

The door was opened by a footman, and the lady was in the act of entering when Dumps gave vent to a series of sounds, made up of a whine, a bark, and a yelp. At the same moment his tail all but twirled him off his legs as he rushed wildly up the stairs and began to dance round the lady in mad excitement.

The lady backed against the door in alarm. The footman, anxious apparently about his calves, seized an umbrella and made a wild assault on the dog, and I was confusedly conscious of Slidder exclaiming, "Why, if that ain't _my_ young lady!" as I sprang up the steps to the rescue.

"Down, Dumps, you rascal; down!" I exclaimed, seizing him by the brass collar with which I had invested him.--"Pardon the rudeness of my dog, madam," I said, looking up; "I never saw him act in this way before. It is quite unaccountable--"

"Not quite so unaccountable as you think," interrupted Slidder, who stood looking calmly on, with his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.--"It's your own dog, miss."

"What do you mean, boy?" said the lady, a gaze of surprise chasing away the look of alarm which had covered her pretty face.

"I mean 'xactly what I says, miss. The dog's your own: I sold it to you long ago for five bob!"

The girl--for she was little more than sixteen--turned with a startled, doubting look to the dog.

"If you don't b'lieve it, miss, look at the vite spot on the bridge of 'is nose," said Slidder, with a self-satisfied nod to the lady and a supremely insolent wink to the footman.

"Pompey!" exclaimed the girl, holding out a pair of the prettiest little gloved hands imaginable.

My doggie broke from my grasp with a shriek of joy, and sprang into her arms. She buried her face in his shaggy neck and absolutely hugged him.

I stood aghast. The footman smiled in an imbecile manner.

"You'd better not squeeze quite so hard, miss, or he'll bust!" remarked the waif.

Recovering herself, and dropping the dog somewhat hurriedly, she turned to me with a flushed face and said--

"Excuse me, sir; this unexpected meeting with my dog--"

"_Your_ dog!" I involuntarily exclaimed, while a sense of unmerited loss began to creep over me.

"Well, the dog was mine once, at all events--though I doubt not it is rightfully yours now," said the young lady, with a smile that at once disarmed me. "It was stolen from me a few months after I had bought it from this boy, who seems strangely altered since then. I'm glad, however, to see that the short time I had the dog was sufficient to prevent its forgetting me. But perhaps," she added, in a sad tone, "it would have been better if it _had_ forgotten me."

My mind was made up.

"No, madam," said I, with decision; "it is well that the dog has not forgotten you. I would have been surprised, indeed, if it had. It is yours. I could not think of robbing you of it. I--I--am going to visit a sick woman and cannot delay; forgive me if I ask permission to leave the dog with you until I return in the afternoon to hand it formally over and bid it farewell."

This was said half in jest yet I felt very much in earnest, for the thought of parting from my doggie, even to such a fair mistress, cost me no small amount of pain--much to my surprise, for I had not imagined it possible that I could have formed so strong an attachment to a dumb animal in so short a time. But, you see, being a bachelor of an unsocial spirit, my doggie and I had been thrown much together in the evenings, and had made the most of our time.

The young lady half laughed, and hesitatingly thanked me as she went into the house, followed by Dumps, _alias_ Punch, _alias_ Pompey, who never so much as cast one parting glance on me as I turned to leave. A shout caused me to turn again and look back. I beheld an infant rolling down the drawing-room stairs like a small Alpine boulder. A little girl was vainly attempting to arrest the infant, and three boys, of various sizes, came bounding towards the young lady with shouts of welcome. In the midst of the din my doggie uttered a cry of pain, the Babel of children's voices was hushed by a bass growl, and the street door closed with a bang!

"Yell, that _is_ a rum go!" exclaimed my little companion, as we walked slowly away. "Don't it seem to you, now, as if it wor all a dream?"

"It does, indeed," I replied, half inclined to laugh, yet with a feeling of sadness at my heart, for I knew that my doggie and I were parted for ever! Even if the young lady should insist on my keeping the dog, I felt that I could not agree to do so. No! I had committed myself, and the thing was done; for it was clear that, with the mutual affection existing between the lady and the dog, they would not willingly consent to be parted--it would be cruelty even to suggest a separation.

"Pshaw!" thought I, "why should the loss of a miserable dog--a mere mass of shapeless hair--affect me so much? Pooh! I will brush the subject away."

So I brushed it away, but back it came again in spite of all my brushing, and insisted on remaining to trouble me.

Short though our friendship had been, it had, I found, become very warm and strong. I recalled a good many pleasant evenings when, seated alone in my room with a favourite author, I had read and tickled Dumps under the chin and behind the ears to such an extent that I had thoroughly gained his heart; and as "love begets love," I had been drawn insensibly yet powerfully towards him. In short, Dumps and I understood each other.

While I was meditating on these things my companion, who had walked along in silence, suddenly said--

"You needn't take on so, sir, about Punch."

"How d'you know I'm taking on so?"

"'Cause you look so awful solemncholy. An' there's no occasion to do so. You can get the critter back again."

"I fear not Slidder, for I have already given it to the young lady, and you have seen how fond she is of it; and the dog evidently likes her better than it likes me."

"Yell, I ain't surprised at _that_. It on'y proves it to be a dog of good taste; but you can get it back for all that."

"How so?" I asked, much amused by the decision and self-sufficiency of the boy's manner.

"Vy, you've on'y got to go and marry the young lady, w'en, of course, all her property becomes yours, Punch included, don't you see?"

"True, Slidder; it had not occurred to me in that light," said I, laughing heartily, as much at the cool and quiet insolence of the waif's manner as at his suggestion. "But then, you see, there are difficulties in the way. Young ladies who dwell in fine mansions are not fond of marrying penniless doctors."

"Pooh!" replied the urchin; "that 'as nuffin' to do with it. You've on'y got to set up in a 'ouse close alongside, with a big gold mortar over the door an' a one-'oss broom, an' you'll 'ave 'er in six months-- or eight if she's got contrairy parents. Then you'll want a tiger, of course, to 'old the 'oss; an' I knows a smart young feller whose name begins with a S, as would just suit. So, you see, you've nothing to do but to go in an win."

The precocious waif looked up in my face with such an expression of satisfaction as he finished this audacious speech, that I could not help gazing at him in blank amazement. What I should have replied I know not, for we arrived just then at the abode of old Mrs Willis.

The poor old lady was suffering from a severe attack of influenza, which, coupled with age and the depression caused by her heavy sorrow, had reduced her physical powers in an alarming degree. It was obvious that she urgently required good food and careful nursing. I never before felt so keenly my lack of money. My means barely sufficed to keep myself, educational expenses being heavy. I was a shy man, too, and had never made friends--at least among the rich--to whom I could apply on occasions like this.

"Dear granny," I said, "you would get along nicely if you would consent to go to a hospital."

"Never!" said the old lady, in a tone of decision that surprised me.

"I assure you, granny, that you would be much better cared for and fed there than you can be here, and it would not be necessary to give up your room. I would look after it until you are better."

Still the old lady shook her head, which was shaking badly enough from age as it was.

Going to the corner cupboard, in which Mrs Willis kept her little store of food and physic, I stood there pondering what I should do.

"Please, sir," said Slidder, sidling up to me, "if you wants mutton-chops, or steaks, or port wine, or anythink o' that sort, just say the word and I'll get 'em."

"You, boy--how?"

"Vy, ain't the shops full of 'em? I'd go an help myself, spite of all the bobbies that valks in blue."

"Oh, Slidder," said I, really grieved, for I saw by his earnest face that he meant it, "would you go and steal after all I have said to you about that sin?"

"Vell, sir, I wouldn't prig for myself--indeed I wouldn't--but I'd do it to make the old 'ooman better."

"That would not change stealing into a virtue. No, my boy, we must try to hit on some other way of providing for her wants."