Part 6 (1/2)
”Is this all?” asked the colonel of the servant, as she brought in a couple of letters at breakfast-time.
”There's a hamper for Miss Sylvia, sir.”
”A hamper, is there? Well, bring it in.”
”If you please, sir, there's several of them.”
”What? Several? How many are there?”
”Nineteen, sir,” said Mary, restraining with some difficulty an inclination to giggle.
”Eh? What? Nineteen? Nonsense! Where are they?”
”We've put them in the coachhouse for the present, sir. And if you please, sir, cook says she thinks there's something alive in them.”
”Something alive?”
”Yes, sir. And John says he thinks it's dogs, sir!”
The colonel uttered a sound that was almost a bark, and, followed by Sylvia, rushed to the coachhouse. There, sure enough, as far as the eye could reach, were the hampers; and, as they looked, a sound proceeded from one of them that was unmistakably the plaintive note of a dog that has been shut up, and is getting tired of it.
Instantly the other eighteen hampers joined in, until the whole coachhouse rang with the noise.
The colonel subsided against a wall, and began to express himself softly in Hindustani.
”Poor dears!” said Sylvia. ”How stuffy they must be feeling!”
She ran to the house, and returned with a basin of water.
”Poor dears!” she said again. ”You'll soon have something to drink.”
She knelt down by the nearest hamper, and cut the cord that fastened it. A pug jumped out like a jack-in-the-box, and rushed to the water.
Sylvia continued her work of mercy, and by the time the colonel had recovered sufficiently to be able to express his views in English, eighteen more pugs had joined their companion.
”Get out, you brute!” shouted the colonel, as a dog insinuated itself between his legs. ”Sylvia, put them back again this minute! You had no business to let them out. Put them back!”
”But I can't, papa. I can't catch them.”
She looked helplessly from him to the seething ma.s.s of dogs, and back again.
”Where's my gun?” began the colonel.
”Papa, don't! You couldn't be so cruel! They aren't doing any harm, poor things!”
”If I knew who sent them----”
”Perhaps there's something to show. Yes; here's a visiting-card in this hamper.”
”Whose is it?” bellowed the colonel through the din.