Part 27 (1/2)

So he followed the broken-nosed, bandy-legged man till they reached a narrow lonely alley, and then just as Dandy was thinking about going home again, the stranger turned suddenly on him, hemmed him up in a corner, caught him dexterously up in one hand, tapped him sharply on the head, and slipped him, stunned, into a capacious inside pocket.

'I thought werry likely I should come on you in 'ere, Bob,' said a broken-nosed man in a fur cap, about a week after Dandy's disappearance, to a short, red-faced, hoa.r.s.e man who was drinking at the bar of a public-house.

'Ah,' said the hoa.r.s.e man; 'well, you ain't fur out as it happens.'

'Yes, I did,' said the other. 'I met your partner the other day, and he tells me you're looking out for a noo Toby dawg. I've got a article somewheres about me at this moment I should like you to cast a eye over.'

And, diving into his inside pocket he fished out a small s.h.i.+ning silver-grey terrier which he slammed down rather roughly on the pewter counter.

Of course the terrier was Hilda's lost Dandy. For some reason or other, the dog-stealer had not thought it prudent to claim the reward offered for him as he had intended to do at first, and Dandy, not being of a breed in fas.h.i.+onable demand, the man was trying to get rid of him now for the best price he could obtain from humble purchasers.

'Well, we _do_ want a understudy, and that's a fact,' said the hoa.r.s.e man, who was one of the managers of Mr. Punch's Theatre. 'The Toby as travels with us now is breakin' up, getting so blind he don't know Punch from Jack Ketch. But that there animal 'ud never make a 'it as a Toby,' he said, examining Dandy critically: 'why, that's bin a gen'leman's dawg once, that has--we don't want no amatoors on our show.'

'It's the amatoors as draws nowadays,' said the dog-fancier: 'not but what this 'ere partic'lar dawg has his gifts for the purfession. You see him sit up and smoke a pipe and give yer his paw, now.'

And he put Dandy through these performances on the sloppy counter. It was much worse than being introduced to Angelina; but hunger and fretting and rough treatment had broken down the dog's spirit, and it was with dull submission now that he repeated the poor little tricks Hilda had taught him with such pretty perseverance.

'It's no use talking,' said the showman, though he began to show some signs of yielding. 'It takes a tyke born and bred to make a reg'lar Toby. And this ain't a young dog, and he ain't 'ad no proper dramatic eddication; he's not worth to us not the lowest you'd take for him.'

'Well now, I'll tell you 'ow fur I'm willing to meet yer,' said the other persuasively; 'you shall have him, seein' it's _you_, for----' And so they haggled on for a little longer, but at the end of the interview Dandy had changed hands, and was permanently engaged as a member of Mr.

Punch's travelling company.

A few days after that Dandy made acquaintance with his strange fellow-performers. The men had put the show up on a deserted part of a common near London, behind the railings of a little cemetery where no one was likely to interfere with them, and the new Toby was hoisted up on the very narrow and uncomfortable shelf to go through his first interview with Mr. Punch.

When that popular gentleman appeared at his side Dandy examined him with p.r.i.c.ked and curious ears. He was rather odd-looking, but his smile, though there was certainly a good deal of it, seemed genial and encouraging, and the poor dog wagged his tail in a conciliatory manner--he wanted some one to be kind to him again.

'The dawg's a fool, Bob,' growled Jem, the other proprietor of the show, a little shabby dirty-faced man with a thin and ragged red beard, who was watching the experiment from the outside; 'he's a-waggin' his bloomin' tail--he'll be a-lickin of Punch's face next! Try him with a squeak.'

And Bob produced a sound which was a hideous compound of chuckle, squeak, and crow, when Dandy, in the full persuasion that the strange figure must be a new variety of cat, flew at it blindly.

But though he managed to get a firm grip of its great hook nose, there was not much satisfaction to be got out of that--the hard wood made his teeth ache, and besides, in his excitement he overbalanced himself and came suddenly down upon Mr. Robert Blott inside, who swore horribly and put him up again.

Then, after a little highly mysterious dancing up and down, and wagging his head, Mr. Punch, in the most uncalled-for manner, hit Dandy over the head with a stick, in order, as Jem put it, 'to get up a ill-feeling between them'--a wanton insult that made the dog madder than ever.

He did not revenge himself at once: he only barked furiously and retreated to his corner of the stage; but the next time Punch came sidling cautiously up to him, Dandy made, not for his wooden head, but for a place between his shoulders which he thought looked more yielding.

There was a savage howl from below, Punch dropped in a heap on the narrow shelf, and Mr. Blott sucked his finger and thumb with many curses.

Mr. Punch was not killed, however, though Dandy had at first imagined he had settled him. He revived almost directly, when he proceeded to rain down such a shower of savage blows from his thick stick upon every part of the dog's defenceless body, that Dandy was completely subdued long before his master thought fit to leave off.

By the time the lesson came to an end, Dandy was sore and shaken and dazed, for Bob had allowed himself to be a little carried away by personal feeling. Still it only showed Dandy more plainly that Mr.

Punch was not a person to be trifled with, and, though he liked him as little as ever, he respected as well as feared him.

Unfortunately for Dandy, he was a highly intelligent terrier, of an inquiring turn of mind, and so, after he had been led about for some days with the show, and was able to think things over and put them together, he began to suspect that Punch and the other figures were not alive after all, but only a particularly ugly set of dolls, which Mr.

Blott put in motion in some way best known to himself.

From the time he was perfectly certain of this he felt a degraded dog indeed. He had scorned once to allow himself to be even touched by Angelina (who at least was not unpleasant to look at, and always quite inoffensive): now, every hour of his life he found himself ordered about and insulted before a crowd of shabby strangers by a vulgar tawdry doll, to which he was obliged to be civil and even affectionate--as if it was something real!

Dandy was an honest dog, and so, of course, it was very revolting to his feelings to have to impose upon the public in this manner; but Mr.