CHAPTER FOUR.
IN WHICH DUMPS FINDS ANOTHER OLD FRIEND.
One morning, a considerable time after the events narrated in the lastchapter, I sat on the sofa waiting for breakfast, and engaged in aninteresting conversation with Dumps. The only difference in our mode ofcommunication was that Dumps talked with his eyes, I with my tongue.
From what I have already said about my doggie, it will be understoodthat his eyes--which were brown and speaking eyes--lay behind such aforest of hair that it was only by clearing the dense masses away that Icould obtain a full view of his liquid orbs. I am not sure that hisears were much less expressive than his eyes. Their variety of motion,coupled with their rate of action, served greatly to develop the fullmeaning of what his eyes said.
"Mrs Miff seems to have forgotten us this morning, Dumps," I remarked,pulling out my watch.
One ear cocked forward, the other turned back towards the door, and awhite gleam under the hair, indicating that the eyes turned in the samedirection, said as plainly as there was any occasion for--
"No; not quite forgotten us. I hear her coming now."
"Ha! so she is. Now you shall have a feed." Both ears elevated to thefull extent obviously meant "Hurrah!" while a certain motion of his bodyappeared to imply that, in consequence of his sedentary position, he wasvainly attempting to wag the sofa.
"If you please, sir," said my landlady, laying the breakfast tray on thetable, "there's a shoe-black in the kitchen says he wants to see you."
"Ah! young Slidder, I fancy. Well, send him up."
"He says he's 'ad his breakfast an' will wait till you have done, sir."
"Very considerate. Send him up nevertheless."
In a few minutes my _protege_ stood before me, hat in hand, looking, inthe trim costume of the brigade, quite a different being from the raggedcreature I had met with in Whitechapel. Dumps instantly assaulted himwith loving demonstrations.
"How spruce you look, my boy!"
"Thanks to _you_, sir," replied Slidder, with a familiar nod; "they dosay I'm lookin' up."
"I hope you like the work. Have you had breakfast? Would a roll do youany good?"
"Thankee, I'm primed for the day. I came over, sir, to say that grannyseems to me to be out o' sorts. Since I've been allowed to sleep on therug inside her door, I've noticed that she ain't so lively as she usedto was. Shivers a deal w'en it ain't cold, groans now an' then, anwhimpers a good deal. It strikes me, now--though I ain't a reg'larsawbones--that there's suthin' wrong with her in'ards."
"I'll finish breakfast quickly and go over with you to see her," said I.
"Don't need to 'urry, sir," returned Slidder; "she ain't wery bad--notmuch wuss than or'nary--on'y I've bin too anxious about her--poor oldthing. I'll vait below till you're ready.--Come along, Punch, an' jineyer old pal in the kitchen till the noo 'un's ready."
After breakfast we three hurried out and wended our way eastward. Asthe morning was unusually fine I diverged towards one of the morefashionable localities to deliver a note with which I had been charged.Young Slidder's spirits were high, and for a considerable time heentertained me with a good deal of the East-end gossip. Among otherthings, he told me of the great work that was being done there by DrBarnardo and others of similar spirit, in rescuing waifs like himselffrom their wretched condition.
"Though some 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 noconsideration; 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 towork--that's about it. He'd sooner starve than work. By consikence hesteals, more or less, an finds a 'ome in the `stone jug' prettyfrequent. As to his taste for a sugar-barrel, I ain't so sure that Idon't agree with 'im. It's big, you know--plenty of room to move, w'ichit ain't so with a flour-barrel. An' then the smell! Oh! you've nonotion! W'y, that's wuth the price of a night's lodgin' itself, to saynothin' o' the chance of a knot-hole or a crack full o' sugar, that theformer tenants has failed to diskiver."
While the waif was commenting thus enthusiastically on the bliss oflodging in a sugar-barrel, we were surprised to see Dumps, who chancedto be trotting on in front come to a sudden pause and gaze at a lady whowas 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 ofentering 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 offhis legs as he rushed wildly up the stairs and began to dance round thelady in mad excitement.
The lady backed against the door in alarm. The footman, anxiousapparently about his calves, seized an umbrella and made a wild assaulton 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 brasscollar 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. Itis quite unaccountable--"
"Not quite so unaccountable as you think," interrupted Slidder, whostood looking calmly on, with his hands in his pockets and a grin on hisface.--"It's your own dog, miss."
"What do you mean, boy?" said the lady, a gaze of surprise chasing awaythe 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 youlong 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 asupremely insolent wink to the footman.
"Pompey!" exclaimed the girl, holding out a pair of the prettiest littlegloved hands imaginable.
My doggie broke from my grasp with a shriek of joy, and sprang into herarms. 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!" remarkedthe waif.
Recovering herself, and dropping the dog somewhat hurriedly, she turnedto 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 unmeritedloss began to creep over me.
"Well, the dog was mine once, at all events--though I doubt not it isrightfully yours now," said the young lady, with a smile that at oncedisarmed me. "It was stolen from me a few months after I had bought itfrom this boy, who seems strangely altered since then. I'm glad,however, to see that the short time I had the dog was sufficient toprevent its forgetting me. But perhaps," she added, in a sad tone, "itwould 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 notforgotten you. I would have been surprised, indeed, if it had. It isyours. I could not think of robbing you of it. I--I--am going to visita sick woman and cannot delay; forgive me if I ask permission to leavethe dog with you until I return in the afternoon to hand it formallyover and bid it farewell."
This was said half in jest yet I felt very much in earnest, for thethought of parting from my doggie, even to such a fair mistress, cost meno small amount of pain--much to my surprise, for I had not imagined itpossible that I could have formed so strong an attachment to a dumbanimal in so short a time. But, you see, being a bachelor of anunsocial spirit, my doggie and I had been thrown much together in theevenings, and had made the most of our time.
The young lady half laughed, and hesitatingly thanked me as she wentinto the house, followed by Dumps, _alias_ Punch, _alias_ Pompey, whonever so much as cast one parting glance on me as I turned to leave. Ashout caused me to turn again and look back. I beheld an infant rollingdown the drawing-room stairs like
a small Alpine boulder. A little girlwas vainly attempting to arrest the infant, and three boys, of varioussizes, came bounding towards the young lady with shouts of welcome. Inthe midst of the din my doggie uttered a cry of pain, the Babel ofchildren's voices was hushed by a bass growl, and the street door closedwith a bang!
"Yell, that _is_ a rum go!" exclaimed my little companion, as we walkedslowly 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 feelingof sadness at my heart, for I knew that my doggie and I were parted forever! Even if the young lady should insist on my keeping the dog, Ifelt that I could not agree to do so. No! I had committed myself, andthe thing was done; for it was clear that, with the mutual affectionexisting between the lady and the dog, they would not willingly consentto be parted--it would be cruelty even to suggest a separation.
"Pshaw!" thought I, "why should the loss of a miserable dog--a mere massof shapeless hair--affect me so much? Pooh! I will brush the subjectaway."
So I brushed it away, but back it came again in spite of all mybrushing, and insisted on remaining to trouble me.
Short though our friendship had been, it had, I found, become very warmand strong. I recalled a good many pleasant evenings when, seated alonein my room with a favourite author, I had read and tickled Dumps underthe chin and behind the ears to such an extent that I had thoroughlygained his heart; and as "love begets love," I had been drawn insensiblyyet powerfully towards him. In short, Dumps and I understood eachother.
While I was meditating on these things my companion, who had walkedalong 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 doso. You can get the critter back again."
"I fear not Slidder, for I have already given it to the young lady, andyou have seen how fond she is of it; and the dog evidently likes herbetter than it likes me."
"Yell, I ain't surprised at _that_. It on'y proves it to be a dog ofgood taste; but you can get it back for all that."
"How so?" I asked, much amused by the decision and self-sufficiency ofthe 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'smanner as at his suggestion. "But then, you see, there are difficultiesin the way. Young ladies who dwell in fine mansions are not fond ofmarrying penniless doctors."
"Pooh!" replied the urchin; "that 'as nuffin' to do with it. You'veon'y got to set up in a 'ouse close alongside, with a big gold mortarover 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, ofcourse, to 'old the 'oss; an' I knows a smart young feller whose namebegins with a S, as would just suit. So, you see, you've nothing to dobut to go in an win."
The precocious waif looked up in my face with such an expression ofsatisfaction as he finished this audacious speech, that I could not helpgazing at him in blank amazement. What I should have replied I knownot, 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 obviousthat she urgently required good food and careful nursing. I neverbefore felt so keenly my lack of money. My means barely sufficed tokeep myself, educational expenses being heavy. I was a shy man, too,and had never made friends--at least among the rich--to whom I couldapply on occasions like this.
"Dear granny," I said, "you would get along nicely if you would consentto 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 fedthere than you can be here, and it would not be necessary to give upyour room. I would look after it until you are better."
Still the old lady shook her head, which was shaking badly enough fromage as it was.
Going to the corner cupboard, in which Mrs Willis kept her little storeof food and physic, I stood there pondering what I should do.
"Please, sir," said Slidder, sidling up to me, "if you wantsmutton-chops, or steaks, or port wine, or anythink o' that sort, justsay 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 allthe bobbies that valks in blue."
"Oh, Slidder," said I, really grieved, for I saw by his earnest facethat he meant it, "would you go and steal after all I have said to youabout that sin?"
"Vell, sir, I wouldn't prig for myself--indeed I wouldn't--but I'd do itto make the old 'ooman better."
"That would not change stealing into a virtue. No, my boy, we must tryto hit on some other way of providing for her wants."
"The Lord will provide," said Mrs Willis, from the bed.
She had overheard us. I hastened to her side.
"Yes, granny, He _will_ provide. Meanwhile He has given me enough moneyto spare a little for your immediate wants. I will send some things,which your kind neighbour, Mrs Jones, will cook for you. I'll give herdirections as I pass her door. Slidder will go home with me and fetchyou the medicines you require. Now, try to sleep till Mrs Jones comeswith the food. You must not speak to me. It will make you worse."
"I only want to ask, John, have you any--any news about--"
"No, not yet, granny; but don't be cast down. If you can trust God forfood, surely you can trust Him for protection, not only to yourself, butto Edie. Remember the words, `Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He willbring it to pass.'"
"Thank you, John," replied the old woman, as she sank back on her pillowwith a little sigh.
After leaving Mrs Willis I was detained so long with some of mypatients that it was late before I could turn my steps westward. Thenight was very cold, with a keen December wind blowing, and heavy blackclouds driving across the dark sky. It was after midnight as I drewnear the neighbourhood of the house in which I had left Dumps sohurriedly that morning. In my haste I had neglected to ask the name ofthe young lady with whom I had left him, or to note the number of thehouse; but I recollected its position, and resolved to go round by itfor the purpose of ascertaining the name on the door.