Part 16 (2/2)

”Thank you, sir,” returned Ted gratefully.

And then between them they managed to get the poor fellow to the doctors, who were hard at work behind a poor shelter of wagons and store-cases. But it was too late, for when they laid him down Jack Green was dead and at ease for ever.

One of the hospital orderlies turned from a case at hand, and Ted uttered a cry of surprise at the sight of him. ”Why, _Tom_!” he cried, starting up to take his hand, ”I didn't even know you were with us.”

There was no answering gleam of pleasure on Tom Boynton's face; he stared at Ted, stared at the face of the dead man lying at their feet, then dropped upon his knees beside him. ”Oh, Jack, Jack, speak to me,”

he cried imploringly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Oh, Jack, Jack, speak to me,” he cried imploringly.]

”It's too late, Tom,” said Ted, bending down. ”I did my best, but it was too late, old man. I did my best.”

Tom Boynton looked up in his old chum's face. ”You let him die?” he asked.

”We were three to one,” returned the other humbly.

”You did your best, and you let him die,” repeated Tom blankly. ”And he was my chum,” he added miserably.

”Tom,” cried Ted pa.s.sionately, ”I was your chum too.”

”_You!_” with infinite scorn; then bending down he kissed the dead face tenderly.

Ted Petres turned away, blind with pain. He might have won the Cross, but he had lost his friend--the friend who had loved him less than that other chum of whom he had not the heart now to feel jealous.

And that was how they met again--that was the end of Tom Petres' boy's love.

Yum-Yum: A Pug

CHAPTER I

For a pug Yum-Yum was perfect, and let me tell you it takes a great many special sorts of beauty to give you a pug which in any way approaches perfection.

First, your true pug must be of a certain colour, a warm fawn-colour; it must have a proper width of chest and a bull-doggish bandiness about the legs; it must have a dark streak from the top of its head along its back towards the tail; it must have a double twist to that same tail, and three rolls of fat or loose skin, set like a collar about its throat; it must have a square mouth, an ink-black--no, no, a soot-black mask (that is, face) adorned with an infinitesimal nose, a pair of large and l.u.s.trous goggle-eyes, and five moles. I believe, too, that there is something very important about the shape and colouring of its toes; but I really don't know much about pugs, and this list of perfections is only what I have been able to gather from various friends who do understand the subject.

So let me get on with my story, and say at once that Yum-Yum possessed all these perfections. She may have had others, for she was without doubt a great beauty of her kind, and she certainly was blessed with an admirable temper, an angelic temper, mild as new milk, and as patient as Job's.

And Yum-Yum belonged to a little lady called Nannie Mackenzie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Yum-Yum: A Pug.]

The Mackenzies, I must tell you, were not rich people, or in any way persons of importance; they had no relations, and apparently belonged to no particular family; but they were very nice people, and very good people, and lived in one of a large row of houses on the Surrey side of the river Thames, at that part which is called Putney.

Mr. Mackenzie was something in the city, and had not apparently hit upon a good thing, for there was not much money to spare in the house at Putney. I rather fancy that he was managing clerk to a tea-warehouse, but am not sure upon that point. Mrs. Mackenzie had been a governess, but of course she had not started life as a teacher of small children; no, she had come into the world in an upper room of a pretty country vicarage, where the olive branches grew like stonecrop, and most visitors were in the habit of reminding the vicar of certain lines in the hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm.

<script>