A Canine Ishmael
by
(FROM THE NOTES OF A DINER-OUT)
‘Tell me,’ she said suddenly, with a pretty imperiousness that seemed to belong to her, ‘are you fond of dogs?’ How we arrived at the subject I forget now, but I know she had just been describing how a collie at a dog-show she had visited lately had suddenly thrown his forepaws round her neck in a burst of affection–a proceeding which, in my own mind (although I prudently kept this to myself), I considered less astonishing than she appeared to do.
For I had had the privilege of taking her in to dinner, and the meal had not reached a very advanced stage before I had come to the conclusion that she was the most charming, if not the loveliest, person I had ever met.
It was fortunate for me that I was honestly able to answer her question in a satisfactory manner, for, had it been otherwise, I doubt whether she would have deigned to bestow much more of her conversation upon me.
‘Then I wonder,’ she said next, meditatively, ‘if you would care to hear about a dog that belonged to–to someone I know very well? Or would it bore you?’
I am very certain that if she had volunteered to relate the adventures of Telemachus, or the history of the Thirty Years’ War, I should have accepted the proposal with a quite genuine gratitude. As it was, I made it sufficiently plain that I should care very much indeed to hear about that dog.
She paused for a moment to reject an unfortunate entree (which I confess to doing my best to console), and then she began her story. I shall try to set it down as nearly as possible in her own words, although I cannot hope to convey the peculiar charm and interest that she gave it for me. It was not, I need hardly say, told all at once, but was subject to the inevitable interruptions which render a dinner-table intimacy so piquantly precarious.
‘This dog,’ she began quietly, without any air of beginning a story, ‘this dog was called Pepper. He was not much to look at–rather a rough, mongrelly kind of animal; and he and a young man had kept house together for a long time, for the young man was a bachelor and lived in chambers by himself. He always used to say that he didn’t like to get engaged to anyone, because he was sure it would put Pepper out so fearfully. However, he met somebody at last who made him forget about Pepper, and he proposed and was accepted–and then, you know,’ she added, as a little dimple came in her cheek, ‘he had to go home and break the news to the dog.’
She had just got to this point, when, taking advantage of a pause she made, the man on her other side (who was, I daresay, strictly within his rights, although I remember at the time considering him a pushing beast) struck in with some remark which she turned to answer, leaving me leisure to reflect.
I was feeling vaguely uncomfortable about this story; something, it would be hard to say what, in her way of mentioning Pepper’s owner made me suspect that he was more than a mere acquaintance of hers.
Was it she, then, who was responsible for—-? It was no business of mine, of course; I had never met her in my life till that evening–but I began to be impatient to hear the rest.
And at last she turned to me again: ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten that I was in the middle of a story. You haven’t? And you would really like me to go on? Well, then–oh yes, when Pepper was told, he was naturally a little annoyed at first. I daresay he considered he ought to have been consulted previously. But, as soon as he had seen the lady, he withdrew all opposition–which his master declared was a tremendous load off his mind, for Pepper was rather a difficult dog, and slow as a rule to take strangers into his affections, a little snappy and surly, and very easily hurt or offended. Don’t you know dogs who are sensitive like that? I do, and I’m always so sorry for them–they feel little things so much, and one never can find out what’s the matter, and have it out with them! Sometimes it’s shyness; once I had a dog who was quite painfully shy–self-consciousness it was really, I suppose, for he always fancied everybody was looking at him, and often when people were calling he would come and hide his face in the folds of my dress till they had gone–it was too ridiculous! But about Pepper. He was devoted to his new mistress from the very first. I am not sure that she was quite so struck with him, for he was not at all a lady’s dog, and his manners had been very much neglected. Still, she came quite to like him in time; and when they were married, Pepper went with them for the honeymoon.’