The Man With Two Left Feet

  ‘I have him now, madam,’ I heard him say.

  ‘Take him to the stables and tie him up, Weeks, and tell one of the men to bring his gun and shoot him. He is not safe.’

  A few minutes later I was in an empty stall, tied up to the manger.

  It was all over. It had been pleasant while it lasted, but I had reached the end of my tether now. I don’t think I was frightened, but a sense of pathos stole over me. I had meant so well. It seemed as if good intentions went for nothing in this world. I had tried so hard to please everybody, and this was the result—tied up in a dark stable, waiting for the end.

  The shadows lengthened in the stable yard, and still nobody came. I began to wonder if they had forgotten me, and presently, in spite of myself, a faint hope began to spring up inside me that this might mean that I was not to be shot after all. Perhaps Toto at the eleventh hour had explained everything.

  And then footsteps sounded outside, and the hope died away. I shut my eyes.

  Somebody put his arms round my neck, and my nose touched a warm cheek. I opened my eyes. It was not the man with the gun come to shoot me. It was Peter. He was breathing very hard, and he had been crying.

  ‘Quiet!’ he whispered.

  He began to untie the rope.

  ‘You must keep quite quiet, or they will hear us, and then we shall be stopped. I’m going to take you into the woods, and we’ll walk and walk until we come to the city I told you about that’s all gold and diamonds, and we’ll live there for the rest of our lives, and no one will be able to hurt us. But you must keep very quiet.’

  He went to the stable gate and looked out. Then he gave a little whistle to me to come after him. And we started out to find the city.

  The woods were a long way away, down a hill of long grass and across a stream; and we went very carefully, keeping in the shadows and running across the open spaces. And every now and then we would stop and look back, but there was nobody to be seen. The sun was setting, and everything was very cool and quiet.

  Presently we came to the stream and crossed it by a little wooden bridge, and then we were in the woods, where nobody could see us.

  I had never been in the woods before, and everything was very new and exciting to me. There were squirrels and rabbits and birds, more than I had ever seen in my life, and little things that buzzed and flew and tickled my ears. I wanted to rush about and look at everything, but Peter called to me, and I came to heel. He knew where we were going, and I didn’t, so I let him lead.

  We went very slowly. The wood got thicker and thicker the farther we got into it. There were bushes that were difficult to push through, and long branches, covered with thorns, that reached out at you and tore at you when you tried to get away. And soon it was quite dark, so dark that I could see nothing, not even Peter, though he was so close. We went slower and slower, and the darkness was full of queer noises. From time to time Peter would stop, and I would run to him and put my nose in his hand. At first he patted me, but after a while he did not pat me anymore, but just gave me his hand to lick, as if it was too much for him to lift it. I think he was getting very tired. He was quite a small boy and not strong, and we had walked a long way.

  It seemed to be getting darker and darker. I could hear the sound of Peter’s footsteps, and they seemed to drag as he forced his way through the bushes. And then, quite suddenly, he sat down without any warning, and when I ran up I heard him crying.

  I suppose there are lots of dogs who would have known exactly the right thing to do, but I could not think of anything except to put my nose against his cheek and whine. He put his arm round my neck, and for a long time we stayed like that, saying nothing. It seemed to comfort him, for after a time he stopped crying.

  I did not bother him by asking about the wonderful city where we were going, for he was so tired. But I could not help wondering if we were near it. There was not a sign of any city, nothing but darkness and odd noises and the wind singing in the trees. Curious little animals, such as I had never smelt before, came creeping out of the bushes to look at us. I would have chased them, but Peter’s arm was round my neck and I could not leave him. But when something that smelt like a rabbit came so near that I could have reached out a paw and touched it, I turned my head and snapped; and then they all scurried back into the bushes and there were no more noises.

  There was a long silence. Then Peter gave a great gulp.

  ‘I’m not frightened,’ he said. ‘I’m not!’

  I shoved my head closer against his chest. There was another silence for a long time.

  ‘I’m going to pretend we have been captured by brigands,’ said Peter at last. ‘Are you listening? There were three of them, great big men with beards, and they crept up behind me and snatched me up and took me out here to their lair. This is their lair. One was called Dick, the others’ names were Ted and Alfred. They took hold of me and brought me all the way through the wood till we got here, and then they went off, meaning to come back soon. And while they were away, you missed me and tracked me through the woods till you found me here. And then the brigands came back, and they didn’t know you were here, and you kept quite quiet till Dick was quite near, and then you jumped out and bit him and he ran away. And then you bit Ted and you bit Alfred, and they ran away too. And so we were left all alone, and I was quite safe because you were here to look after me. And then—And then—’

  His voice died away, and the arm that was round my neck went limp, and I could hear by his breathing that he was asleep. His head was resting on my back, but I didn’t move. I wriggled a little closer to make him as comfortable as I could, and then I went to sleep myself.

  I didn’t sleep very well. I had funny dreams all the time, thinking these little animals were creeping up close enough out of the bushes for me to get a snap at them without disturbing Peter.

  If I woke once, I woke a dozen times, but there was never anything there. The wind sang in the trees and the bushes rustled, and far away in the distance the frogs were calling.

  And then I woke once more with the feeling that this time something really was coming through the bushes. I lifted my head as far as I could, and listened. For a little while nothing happened, and then, straight in front of me, I saw lights. And there was a sound of trampling in the undergrowth.

  It was no time to think about not waking Peter. This was something definite, something that had to be attended to quick. I was up with a jump, yelling. Peter rolled off my back and woke up, and he sat there listening, while I stood with my front paws on him and shouted at the men. I was bristling all over. I didn’t know who they were or what they wanted, but the way I looked at it was that anything could happen in those woods at that time of night, and, if anybody was coming along to start something, he had got to reckon with me.

  Somebody called, ‘Peter! Are you there, Peter?’

  There was a crashing in the bushes, the lights came nearer and nearer, and then somebody said ‘Here he is!’ and there was a lot of shouting. I stood where I was, ready to spring if necessary, for I was taking no chances.

  ‘Who are you?’ I shouted. ‘What do you want?’ A light flashed in my eyes.

  ‘Why, it’s that dog!’

  Somebody came into the light, and I saw it was the boss. He was looking very anxious and scared, and he scooped Peter up off the ground and hugged him tight.

  Peter was only half awake. He looked up at the boss drowsily, and began to talk about brigands, and Dick and Ted and Alfred, the same as he had said to me. There wasn’t a sound till he had finished. Then the boss spoke.

  ‘Kidnappers! I thought as much. And the dog drove them away!’

  For the first time in our acquaintance he actually patted me.

  ‘Good old man!’ he said.

  ‘He’s my dog,’ said Peter sleepily, ‘and he isn’t to be shot.’

  ‘He certainly isn’t, my b
oy,’ said the boss. ‘From now on he’s the honoured guest. He shall wear a gold collar and order what he wants for dinner. And now let’s be getting home. It’s time you were in bed.’

  Mother used to say, ‘If you’re a good dog, you will be happy. If you’re not, you won’t,’ but it seems to me that in this world it is all a matter of luck. When I did everything I could to please people, they wanted to shoot me; and when I did nothing except run away, they brought me back and treated me better than the most valuable prize-winner in the kennels. It was puzzling at first, but one day I heard the boss talking to a friend who had come down from the city.

  The friend looked at me and said, ‘What an ugly mongrel! Why on earth do you have him about? I thought you were so particular about your dogs?’

  And the boss replied, ‘He may be a mongrel, but he can have anything he wants in this house. Didn’t you hear how he saved Peter from being kidnapped?’

  And out it all came about the brigands.

  ‘The kid called them brigands,’ said the boss. ‘I suppose that’s how it would strike a child of that age. But he kept mentioning the name Dick, and that put the police on the scent. It seems there’s a kidnapper well known to the police all over the country as Dick the Snatcher. It was almost certainly that scoundrel and his gang. How they spirited the child away, goodness knows, but they managed it, and the dog tracked them and scared them off. We found him and Peter together in the woods. It was a narrow escape, and we have to thank this animal here for it.’

  What could I say? It was no more use trying to put them right than it had been when I mistook Toto for a rat. Peter had gone to sleep that night pretending about the brigands to pass the time, and when he awoke he still believed in them. He was that sort of child. There was nothing that I could do about it.

  Round the corner, as the boss was speaking, I saw the kennel-man coming with a plate in his hand. It smelt fine, and he was headed straight for me.

  He put the plate down before me. It was liver, which I love.

  ‘Yes,’ went on the boss, ‘if it hadn’t been for him, Peter would have been kidnapped and scared half to death, and I should be poorer, I suppose, by whatever the scoundrels had chosen to hold me up for.’

  I am an honest dog, and hate to obtain credit under false pretenses, but—liver is liver. I let it go at that.

  Crowned Heads

  Katie had never been more surprised in her life than when the serious young man with the brown eyes and the Charles Dana Gibson profile spirited her away from his friend and Genevieve. Till that moment she had looked on herself as playing a sort of ‘villager and retainer’ part to the brown-eyed young man’s hero and Genevieve’s heroine. She knew she was not pretty, though somebody (unidentified) had once said that she had nice eyes; whereas Genevieve was notoriously a beauty, incessantly pestered, so report had it, by musical comedy managers to go on the stage.

  Genevieve was tall and blonde, a destroyer of masculine peace of mind. She said ‘harf’ and ‘rahther,’ and might easily have been taken for an English duchess instead of a cloak-model at Macey’s. You would have said, in short, that, in the matter of personable young men, Genevieve would have swept the board. Yet, here was this one deliberately selecting her, Katie, for his companion. It was almost a miracle.

  He had managed it with the utmost dexterity at the merry-go-round. With winning politeness he had assisted Genevieve on her wooden steed, and then, as the machinery began to work, had grasped Katie’s arm and led her at a rapid walk out into the sunlight. Katie’s last glimpse of Genevieve had been the sight of her amazed and offended face as it whizzed round the corner, while the steam melodeon drowned protests with a spirited plunge into ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’

  Katie felt shy. This young man was a perfect stranger. It was true she had had a formal introduction to him, but only from Genevieve, who had scraped acquaintance with him exactly two minutes previously. It had happened on the ferry boat on the way to Palisades Park. Genevieve’s bright eye, roving among the throng on the lower deck, had singled out this young man and his companion as suitable cavaliers for the expedition. The young man pleased her, and his friend, with the broken nose and the face like a good-natured bulldog, was obviously suitable for Katie.

  Etiquette is not rigid on New York ferry boats. Without fuss or delay she proceeded to make their acquaintance—to Katie’s concern, for she could never get used to Genevieve’s short way with strangers. The quiet life she had led had made her almost prudish, and there were times when Genevieve’s conduct shocked her. Of course, she knew there was no harm in Genevieve. As the latter herself had once put it, ‘The feller that tries to get gay with me is going to get a call-down that’ll make him holler for his winter overcoat.’ But all the same she could not approve. And the net result of her disapproval was to make her shy and silent as she walked by this young man’s side.

  The young man seemed to divine her thoughts.

  ‘Say, I’m on the level,’ he observed. ‘You want to get that. Right on the square. See?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Katie, relieved but yet embarrassed. It was awkward to have one’s thoughts read like this.

  ‘You ain’t like your friend. Don’t think I don’t see that.’

  ‘Genevieve’s a sweet girl,’ said Katie, loyally.

  ‘A darned sight too sweet. Somebody ought to tell her mother.’

  ‘Why did you speak to her if you did not like her?’

  ‘Wanted to get to know you,’ said the young man simply.

  They walked on in silence. Katie’s heart was beating with a rapidity that forbade speech. Nothing like this very direct young man had ever happened to her before. She had grown so accustomed to regarding herself as something too insignificant and unattractive for the notice of the lordly male that she was overwhelmed. She had a vague feeling that there was a mistake somewhere. It surely could not be she who was proving so alluring to this fairy prince. The novelty of the situation frightened her.

  ‘Come here often?’ asked her companion.

  ‘I’ve never been here before.’

  ‘Often go to Coney?’

  ‘I’ve never been.’

  He regarded her with astonishment.

  ‘You’ve never been to Coney Island! Why, you don’t know what this sort of thing is till you’ve taken in Coney. This place isn’t on the map with Coney. Do you mean to say you’ve never seen Luna Park, or Dreamland, or Steeplechase, or the diving ducks? Haven’t you had a look at the Mardi Gras stunts? Why, Coney during Mardi Gras is the greatest thing on earth. It’s a knockout. Just about a million boys and girls having the best time that ever was. Say, I guess you don’t go out much, do you?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘If it’s not a rude question, what do you do? I been trying to place you all along. Now I reckon your friend works in a store, don’t she?’

  ‘Yes. She’s a cloak-model. She has a lovely figure, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Didn’t notice it. I guess so, if she’s what you say. It’s what they pay her for, ain’t it? Do you work in a store, too?’

  ‘Not exactly. I keep a little shop.’

  ‘All by yourself?’

  ‘I do all the work now. It was my father’s shop, but he’s dead. It began by being my grandfather’s. He started it. But he’s so old now that, of course, he can’t work any longer, so I look after things.’

  ‘Say, you’re a wonder! What sort of a shop?’

  ‘It’s only a little second-hand bookshop. There really isn’t much to do.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Sixth Avenue. Near Washington Square.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Bennett.’

  ‘That’s your name, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anything besides Bennett?’

  ‘My name’s Kate.’

  The young man
nodded.

  ‘I’d make a pretty good district attorney,’ he said, disarming possible resentment at this cross-examination. ‘I guess you’re wondering if I’m ever going to stop asking you questions. Well, what would you like to do?’

  ‘Don’t you think we ought to go back and find your friend and Genevieve? They will be wondering where we are.’

  ‘Let ’em,’ said the young man briefly. ‘I’ve had all I want of Jenny.’

  ‘I can’t understand why you don’t like her.’

  ‘I like you. Shall we have some ice cream, or would you rather go on the Scenic Railway?’

  Katie decided on the more peaceful pleasure. They resumed their walk, socially licking two cones. Out of the corner of her eyes Katie cast swift glances at her friend’s face. He was a very grave young man. There was something important as well as handsome about him. Once, as they made their way through the crowds, she saw a couple of boys look almost reverently at him. She wondered who he could be, but was too shy to inquire. She had got over her nervousness to a great extent, but there were still limits to what she felt herself equal to saying. It did not strike her that it was only fair that she should ask a few questions in return for those which he had put. She had always repressed herself, and she did so now. She was content to be with him without finding out his name and history.

  He supplied the former just before he finally consented to let her go.

  They were standing looking over the river. The sun had spent its force, and it was cool and pleasant in the breeze which was coming up the Hudson. Katie was conscious of a vague feeling that was almost melancholy. It had been a lovely afternoon, and she was sorry that it was over.

  The young man shuffled his feet on the loose stones.

  ‘I’m mighty glad I met you,’ he said. ‘Say, I’m coming to see you. On Sixth Avenue. Don’t mind, do you?’