PROOF POSITIVE.
This kind of thing had been going on morning after morning until I was quite tired.
They. You ought to get hold of a good dog.
It is extraordinary how many things one ought to get hold of in the country. Sometimes it is a wood-chopper and sometimes a couple of hundred cabbages, and sometimes a cartload of manure, and sometimes a few good hens. I find this very exhausting to the grip.
I. What for?
They. To watch your house.
I. I do not wish to inflict pain on a good dog. What kind of a dog ought it to be?
They. Well, a mastiff.
I. Isn't that rather a smooth kind of dog? If I have to get hold of a dog, I should like one with rather a rougher surface.
They. Try an Irish terrier.
I. I have. They fight.
They. Not unless they're provoked.
I. Nobody fights unless he is provoked. But more things provoke an Irish terrier than one might imagine. The postman provoked my old one so much that it bit the letters out of his hand and ate them.
They. Well, you didn't get any bills, then.
I. Yes, I did. Bills always came when the dog was away for the week-end. He was a great week-ender, and he always came back from week-ends with more and more pieces out of his ears until at last they were all gone, and he couldn't hear us when we called him.
They. Well, there are plenty of other sorts. You might have a Chow or an Airedale or a boar-hound.
I. Thank you, I do not hunt boars. Besides, all the dogs you mention are very expensive nowadays. In the War it was quite different. You could collect dogs for practically nothing then. My company used to have more than a dozen dogs parading with it every day. They had never seen so many men so willing to go for so many long walks before. They thought the Millennium had come. A proposal was made that they should be taught to form fours and march in the rear. But, like all great strategical plans, it was stifled by red tape. After that—
They. You are getting away from the point. If you really want a good cheap dog—
I. Ah, I thought you were coming to that. You know of a good cheap dog?
They. The gardener of my sister-in-law's aunt has an extremely good cheap dog.
I. And would it watch my house?
They. Most intently.
That is how Trotsky came to us. Nobody but a reckless propagandist would say that he is either a mastiff or a boar-hound, though he once stopped when we came to a pig. I do not mind that. What I do mind is their saying, now that they have palmed him off on me, "I saw you out with your what-ever-it-is yesterday," or "I did not know you had taken to sheep-breeding," or "What is that thing you have tied up to the kennel at the back?" There seems to be something about the animal's tail that does not go with its back, or about its legs that does not go with its nose, or about its eyes that does not go with its fur. If it is fur, that is to say. And the eyes are a different colour and seem to squint a little. They say that one of them is a wall-eye. I think that is the one he watches the house with. Personally I consider that they are very handsome eyes in their own different lines, and my opinion is that he is a Mull-terrier; or possibly a Rum. Anyhow he is a good dog to get hold of, for he is very curly.
The village policeman came round to the house the other day. I think he really came to talk to the cook, but I fell into conversation with him.
"You ought to be getting a licence for that dog of yours," he said.
"What dog?" I asked.
"Why, you've got a dog tied up at the back there, haven't you?" he said.
"Have I?" said I.
And we went out and looked at it together. Trotsky looked at me with one eye and at the policeman with the other, and he wagged his tail. At least I am not sure that he wagged it; "shook" would be a better word.
"Where did you get it?" he inquired.
"Oh, I just got hold of it," I said airily. "It's rather good, don't you think?"
He stood for some time in doubt.
"It's a dog," he said at last.
I shook him warmly by the hand.
"You have taken a great load off my mind," I told him. "I will get a licence at once."
This will score off them pretty badly.
After all you can't go behind a Government certificate, can you?
Evoe.
Caller. "Is Mrs. Jones at home?"
Cook-General. "She is, but she ain't 'ardly in a fit state to see anybody. She's just bin givin' me notice."