FullReads

“Isn’t that nice?” sighed Bessie. “And that’s the American language you’ve written it in, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m often taken for an American when I wish. ”

“I’m sure you must be. ”

Left alone by Turner and Clapham, with the promise that within a few days they would arrange other feats of publicity at least equal to the chance to address the Lads’ Brigade of Golder’s Green, Bessie sat down and sighed. But the next morning she resolutely marched into Terry’s modest 24 x 42 bedroom, where he was reading Treasure Island, and she ordered, “Come on, son; we’re going out and buy the town. Toys. ”

“I don’t want any toys. I hate toys!”

“You heard what I said! Think I’m going to have a lot of kings dropping into your room and seeing you without a lot of swell toys?”

“But Mother, I’d rather have books. ”

“Say, if you keep on like this, you’ll turn out nothing but an author working for one-fifty a week. Books never did nobody no good. Come on!”

By suggestion of the concierge, they took a taxi for an enormous Toy Bazaar on Oxford Street. Bessie firmly bought for Terry an electric train, an electric Derby game, a portable chemical laboratory, a set of boxing gloves, and a choice article in the way of a model of the Colosseum in which electric lions devoured electric Early Christians.

“There! I bet none of these boy kings has got a better set of toys than that!” remarked Bessie.

As they emerged from the Toy Bazaar, Terry saw, next to it, an animal shop.

Ever since they had left Poppy Peaks, Terry had mourned for the disgraceful mongrel which the English quarantine regulations had compelled him to leave at home, and he cried now, “Oh, Mother, I want a dog!”

“If I get you one, will you play nicely with the electric toys?”

“I’ll try; honestly I will. ”

“And will you address these Lad Brigands or whatever it is in this Golden Green or wherever it is? I’ll have this bird Clapham write your speech. ”

“Yes. But a jolly dog!”

“I wish,” said Bessie, in her most refined way, as they entered the animal shop, “to look at a line of dogs. What have you got good today?”

“This, madame, is a very superior animal. ” And the clerk brought out an object as thin as paper, as long as Saturday morning, as gloomy as a cameraman. “This is an Imperial Russian wolfhound, a genuine borzoi—you will recognize the typical borzoi touch, madame—it’s brother of a hound which we sold just yesterday to the Earl of Tweepers for his daughter, Lady Ann—no doubt you know her ladyship, madame. ”

“H-how much?” faltered Bessie.

“To close out this line, madame, we should be willing to let you have this animal for a hundred guineas. ”

The inner, the still Mechanicvillized Bessie Tait was calculating, “Great grief—that’s five hundred bucks for a pooch!” but the outer, the newly refined Mrs. T. Benescoten Tait was remarking evenly, “Rather a lot, but I might consider—Does it please you, Terry?”

She could keep up the strain of refinement no longer; and most briskly, much more happily, she remarked to the clerk, “This is my son, Terry Tait. You’ve probably seen him in the movies. They call him the King of Boy Comedians. ”

“Oh, Mother, please!” protested Terry, but the clerk was trumpeting, “Oh, yes, madame. We are honored in being allowed to serve you. ”

And with that the canine blotter would have been sold, but for one accident. Terry sighed, “Mother, I don’t like him. ”

“But DARling, this is the kind of dog that all nobility get their pictures taken with. But if you don’t like him—”

While Bessie grew momently more impatient, Terry was offered, and declined, such delightful pets as a Pekingese that looked like a misanthropic bug and an Airedale like a rolled-up doormat. Then he stopped before a cage and, his hands clasped in ecstasy, exulted, “Oh, there’s the dog I want!”

The clerk looked shocked; Bessie, seeing his expression, looked shockeder.

Terry’s choice was a canine social error. He was, probably, a cross between a police dog and a collie, with a little Scotch terrier and a trace of cocker spaniel. He had bright eyes, a wide and foolish mouth, and paws so enormous that he resembled a pup on snowshoes. And he had none of the dignity and aloof tolerance of the pedigreed dogs whom Terry had rejected; he laughed at them and wagged at them and barked an ill-bred joyful bark.