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When I found that I was under discussion, I opened my eyes. Master was standing there, looking down at me, and by his side the man who had just said I was ugly enough. The man was a thin man, about the age of a barman and smaller than a policeman. He had patched brown shoes and black trousers.

‘But he’s got a sweet nature,’ said master.

This was true, luckily for me. Mother always said, ‘A dog without influence or private means, if he is to make his way in the world, must have either good looks or amiability.’ But, according to her, I overdid it. ‘A dog,’ she used to say, ‘can have a good heart, without chumming with every Tom, Dick, and Harry he meets. Your behaviour is sometimes quite un-doglike.’ Mother prided herself on being a one-man dog. She kept herself to herself, and wouldn’t kiss anybody except master–not even Fred.

Now, I’m a mixer. I can’t help it. It’s my nature. I like men. I like the taste of their boots, the smell of their legs, and the sound of their voices. It may be weak of me, but a man has only to speak to me and a sort of thrill goes right down my spine and sets my tail wagging.

I wagged it now. The man looked at me rather distantly. He didn’t pat me. I suspected–what I afterwards found to be the case–that he was shy, so I jumped up at him to put him at his ease. Mother growled again. I felt that she did not approve.

‘Why, he’s took quite a fancy to you already,’ said master.

The man didn’t say a word. He seemed to be brooding on something. He was one of those silent men. He reminded me of Joe, the old dog down the street at the grocer’s shop, who lies at the door all day, blinking and not speaking to anybody.

Master began to talk about me. It surprised me, the way he praised me. I hadn’t a suspicion he admired me so much. From what he said you would have thought I had won prizes and ribbons at the Crystal Palace. But the man didn’t seem to be impressed. He kept on saying nothing.

When master had finished telling him what a wonderful dog I was till I blushed, the man spoke.

‘Less of it,’ he said. ‘Half a crown is my bid, and if he was an angel from on high you couldn’t get another ha’penny out of me. What about it?’

A thrill went down my spine and out at my tail, for of course I saw now what was happening. The man wanted to buy me and take me away. I looked at master hopefully.

‘He’s more like a son to me than a dog,’ said master, sort of wistful.

‘It’s his face that makes you feel that way,’ said the man, unsympathetically. ‘If you had a son that’s just how he would look. Half a crown is my offer, and I’m in a hurry.’

‘All right,’ said master, with a sigh, ‘though it’s giving him away, a valuable dog like that. Where’s your half-crown?’

The man got a bit of rope and tied it round my neck.

I could hear mother barking advice and telling me to be a credit to the family, but I was too excited to listen.

‘Good-bye, mother,’ I said. ‘Good-bye, master. Good-bye, Fred. Good-bye everybody. I’m off to see life. The Shy Man has bought me for half a crown. Wow!’

I kept running round in circles and shouting, till the man gave me a kick and told me to stop it.

So I did.

I don’t know where we went, but it was a long way. I had never been off our street before in my life and I didn’t know the whole world was half as big as that. We walked on and on, and the man jerked at my rope whenever I wanted to stop and look at anything. He wouldn’t even let me pass the time of the day with dogs we met.