PAGE 9
The Black Poodle
by
I was walking one day through the somewhat squalid district which lies between Bow Street and High Holborn, when I saw, in a small theatrical costumer’s window, a hand-bill stating that a black poodle had “followed a gentleman” on a certain date, and if not claimed and the finder remunerated before a stated time would be sold to pay expenses.
I went in and got a copy of the bill to show Lilian, and, although by that time I scarcely dared to look a poodle in the face, I thought I would go to the address given and see the animal, simply to be able to tell Lilian I had done so.
The gentleman whom the dog had very unaccountably followed was a certain Mr. William Blagg, who kept a little shop near Endell Street, and called himself a bird-fancier, though I should scarcely have credited him with the necessary imagination. He was an evil-browed ruffian in a fur cap, with a broad broken nose and little shifty red eyes; and after I had told him what I wanted he took me through a horrible little den, stacked with piles of wooden, wire, and wicker prisons, each quivering with restless, twittering life, and then out into a back yard, in which were two or three rotten old kennels and tubs. “That there’s him,” he said, jerking his thumb to the farthest tub; “follered me all the way ‘ome from Kinsington Gardens, he did. Kim out, will yer?”
And out of the tub there crawled slowly, with a snuffling whimper and a rattling of its chain, the identical dog I had slain a few evenings before!
At least, so I thought for a moment, and felt as if I had seen a spectre; the resemblance was so exact–in size, in every detail, even to the little clumps of hair about the hind parts, even to the lop of half an ear, this dog might have been the doppelganger of the deceased Bingo. I suppose, after all, one black poodle is very like any other black poodle of the same size, but the likeness startled me.
I think it was then that the idea occurred to me that here was a miraculous chance of securing the sweetest girl in the whole world, and at the same time atoning for my wrong by bringing back gladness with me to Shuturgarden. It only needed a little boldness; one last deception, and I could embrace truthfulness once more.
Almost unconsciously, when my guide turned round and asked, “Is that there dawg yourn?” I said hurriedly, “Yes, yes; that’s the dog I want; that–that’s Bingo!”
“He don’t seem to be a-puttin’ of ‘isself out about seein’ you again,” observed Mr. Blagg, as the poodle studied me with calm interest.
“Oh, he’s not exactly my dog, you see,” I said; “he belongs to a friend of mine!”
He gave me a quick, furtive glance. “Then maybe you’re mistook about him,” he said, “and I can’t run no risks. I was a-goin’ down in the country this ‘ere werry evenin’ to see a party as lives at Wistaria Willa; he’s been a-hadwertisin’ about a black poodle, he has!”
“But look here,” I said; “that’s me.”
He gave me a curious leer. “No offence, you know, guv’nor,” he said, “but I should wish for some evidence as to that afore I part with a vallyable dawg like this ‘ere!”
“Well,” I said, “here’s one of my cards; will that do for you?”
He took it and spelled it out with a pretence of great caution; but I saw well enough that the old schoundrel suspected that if I had lost a dog at all it was not this particular dog. “Ah,” he said, as he put it in his pocket, “if I part with him to you I must be cleared of all risks. I can’t afford to get into trouble about no mistakes. Unless you likes to leave him for a day or two you must pay accordin’, you see.”