WHEN PAPA SWORE IN HINDUSTANI
"Sylvia!"
"Yes, papa."
"That infernal dog of yours----"
"Oh, papa!"
"Yes, that infernal dog of yours has been at my carnations again!"
Colonel Reynolds, V.C., glared sternly across the table at Miss SylviaReynolds, and Miss Sylvia Reynolds looked in a deprecatory manner backat Colonel Reynolds, V.C.; while the dog in question--a foppishpug--happening to meet the colonel's eye in transit, crawledunostentatiously under the sideboard, and began to wrestle with a badconscience.
"Oh, naughty Tommy!" said Miss Reynolds mildly, in the direction ofthe sideboard.
"Yes, my dear," assented the colonel; "and if you could convey to himthe information that if he does it once more--yes, just once more!--Ishall shoot him on the spot you would be doing him a kindness." Andthe colonel bit a large crescent out of his toast, with all the energyand conviction of a man who has thoroughly made up his mind. "At sixo'clock this morning," continued he, in a voice of gentle melancholy,"I happened to look out of my bedroom window, and saw him. He had thendestroyed two of my best plants, and was commencing on a third, withevery appearance of self-satisfaction. I threw two large brushes and aboot at him."
"Oh, papa! They didn't hit him?"
"No, my dear, they did not. The brushes missed him by several yards,and the boot smashed a fourth carnation. However, I was so fortunateas to attract his attention, and he left off."
"I can't think what makes him do it. I suppose it's bones. He's gotbones buried all over the garden."
"Well, if he does it again, you'll find that there will be a few morebones buried in the garden!" said the colonel grimly; and he subsidedinto his paper.
Sylvia loved the dog partly for its own sake, but principally for thatof the giver, one Reginald Dallas, whom it had struck at an earlyperiod of their acquaintance that he and Miss Sylvia Reynolds weremade for one another. On communicating this discovery to Sylviaherself he had found that her views upon the subject were identicalwith his own; and all would have gone well had it not been for amelancholy accident.
One day while out shooting with the colonel, with whom he was doinghis best to ingratiate himself, with a view to obtaining his consentto the match, he had allowed his sporting instincts to carry him awayto such a degree that, in sporting parlance, he wiped his eye badly.Now, the colonel prided himself with justice on his powers as a shot;but on this particular day he had a touch of liver, which resulted inhis shooting over the birds, and under the birds, and on each side ofthe birds, but very rarely at the birds. Dallas being in especiallygood form, it was found, when the bag came to be counted, that, whilehe had shot seventy brace, the colonel had only managed to secure fiveand a half!
His bad marksmanship destroyed the last remnant of his temper. Heswore for half an hour in Hindustani, and for another half-hour inEnglish. After that he felt better. And when, at the end of dinner,Sylvia came to him with the absurd request that she might marry Mr.Reginald Dallas he did not have a fit, but merely signified in fairlymoderate terms his entire and absolute refusal to think of such athing.
This had happened a month before, and the pug, which had changed handsin the earlier days of the friendship, still remained, at the imminentrisk of its life, to soothe Sylvia and madden her father.
It was generally felt that the way to find favour in the eyes ofSylvia--which were a charming blue, and well worth finding favourin--was to show an intelligent and affectionate interest in her dog.This was so up to a certain point; but no farther, for the mournfulrecollection of Mr. Dallas prevented her from meeting their advancesin quite the spirit they could have wished.
However, they persevered, and scarcely a week went by in which Thomaswas not rescued from an artfully arranged horrible fate by somebody.
But all their energy was in reality wasted, for Sylvia remembered herfaithful Reggie, who corresponded vigorously every day, and refused tobe put off with worthless imitations. The lovesick swains, however,could not be expected to know of this, and the rescuing of Tommyproceeded briskly, now one, now another, playing the role of hero.
The very day after the conversation above recorded had taken place aterrible tragedy occurred.
The colonel, returning from a poor day's shooting, observed throughthe mist that was beginning to rise a small form busily engaged inexcavating in the precious carnation-bed. Slipping in a cartridge, hefired; and the skill which had deserted him during the day came backto him. There was a yelp; then silence. And Sylvia, rushing out fromthe house, found the luckless Thomas breathing his last on a heap ofuprooted carnations.
The news was not long in spreading. The cook told the postman, and thepostman thoughtfully handed it on to the servants at the rest of thehouses on his round. By noon it was public property; and in theafternoon, at various times from two to five, nineteen young men werestruck, quite independently of one another, with a brilliant idea.
The results of this idea were apparent on the following day.
"Is this all?" asked the colonel of the servant, as she brought in acouple of letters at breakfast-time.
"There's a hamper for Miss Sylvia, sir."
"A hamper, is there? Well, bring it in."
"If you please, sir, there's several of them."
"What? Several? How many are there?"
"Nineteen, sir," said Mary, restraining with some difficulty aninclination to giggle.
"Eh? What? Nineteen? Nonsense! Where are they?"
"We've put them in the coachhouse for the present, sir. And if youplease, sir, cook says she thinks there's something alive in them."
"Something alive?"
"Yes, sir. And John says he thinks it's dogs, sir!"
The colonel uttered a sound that was almost a bark, and, followed bySylvia, rushed to the coachhouse. There, sure enough, as far as theeye could reach, were the hampers; and, as they looked, a soundproceeded from one of them that was unmistakably the plaintive note ofa dog that has been shut up, and is getting tired of it.
Instantly the other eighteen hampers joined in, until the wholecoachhouse rang with the noise.
The colonel subsided against a wall, and began to express himselfsoftly in Hindustani.
"Poor dears!" said Sylvia. "How stuffy they must be feeling!"
She ran to the house, and returned with a basin of water.
"Poor dears!" she said again. "You'll soon have something to drink."
She knelt down by the nearest hamper, and cut the cord that fastenedit. A pug jumped out like a jack-in-the-box, and rushed to the water.Sylvia continued her work of mercy, and by the time the colonel hadrecovered sufficiently to be able to express his views in English,eighteen more pugs had joined their companion.
"Get out, you brute!" shouted the colonel, as a dog insinuated itselfbetween his legs. "Sylvia, put them back again this minute! You had nobusiness to let them out. Put them back!"
"But I can't, papa. I can't catch them."
She looked helplessly from him to the seething mass of dogs, and backagain.
"Where's my gun?" began the colonel.
"Papa, don't! You couldn't be so cruel! They aren't doing any harm,poor things!"
"If I knew who sent them----"
"Perhaps there's something to show. Yes; here's a visiting-card inthis hamper."
"Whose is it?" bellowed the colonel through the din.
"J. D'Arcy Henderson, The Firs," read Sylvia, at the top of her voice.
"Young blackguard!" bawled the colonel.
"I expect there's one in each of the hampers. Yes; here's another. W.K. Ross, The Elms."
The colonel came across, and began to examine the hampers with his ownhand. Each hamper contained a visiting-card, and each card bore thename of a neighbour. The colonel returned to the breakfast-room, andlaid the nineteen cards out in a row on the table.
"H'm!" he said, at last. "Mr. Reginald Dallas does not seem to berepresented."
Sylvia said nothing.
"No; he seems not to be represented. I did not give him credit for somuch sense." Then he dropped the subject, and breakfast proceeded insilence.
A young gentleman met the colonel on his walk that morning.
"Morning, colonel!" said he.
"Good-morning!" said the colonel grimly.
"Er--colonel, I--er--suppose Miss Reynolds got that dog all right?"
"To which dog do you refer?"
"It was a pug, you know. It ought to have arrived by this time."
"Yes. I am inclined to think it has. Had it any specialcharacteristics?"
"No, I don't think so. Just an ordinary pug."
"Well, young man, if you will go to my coachhouse, you will findnineteen ordinary pugs; and if you would kindly select your beast, andshoot it, I should be much obliged."
"Nineteen?" said the other, in astonishment. "Why, are you setting upas a dog-fancier in your old age, colonel?"
This was too much for the colonel. He exploded.
"Old age! Confound your impudence! Dog-fancier! No, sir! I have notbecome a dog-fancier in what you are pleased to call my old age! Butwhile there is no law to prevent a lot of dashed young puppies likeyourself, sir--like yourself--sending your confounded pug-dogs to mydaughter, who ought to have known better than to have let them out oftheir dashed hampers, I have no defence.
"Dog-fancier! Gad! Unless those dogs are removed by this timeto-morrow, sir, they will go straight to the Battersea Home, where Idevoutly trust they will poison them. Here are the cards of the othergentlemen who were kind enough to think that I might wish to set upfor a dog-fancier in my old age. Perhaps you will kindly return themto their owners, and tell them what I have just said." And he strodeoff, leaving the young man in a species of trance.
"Sylvia!" said the colonel, on arriving home.
"Yes, papa."
"Do you still want to marry that Dallas fellow? Now, for Heaven'ssake, don't start crying! Goodness knows I've been worried enough thismorning without that. Please answer a plain question in a fairly sanemanner. Do you, or do you not?"
"Of course I do, papa."
"Then you may. He's the furthest from being a fool of any of the youngpuppies who live about here, and he knows one end of a gun from theother. I'll write to him now."
"Dear Dallas" (wrote the colonel),--"I find, on consideration, that you are the only sensible person in the neighbourhood. I hope you will come to lunch to-day. And if you still want to marry my daughter, you may."
To which Dallas replied by return of messenger:
"Thanks for both invitations. I will."
An hour later he arrived in person, and the course of true love pulleditself together, and began to run smooth again.