“Quick, Fuji!” he said. “Warm some milk, some of the Grade A, and put a little brandy in it. I'll get the spare-room bed ready.”
He rushed upstairs, wrapped the puppies in a blanket, and turned on the electric heater to take the chill from the spare-room. The little pads of their paws were ice-cold, and he filled the hot water bottle and held it carefully to their twelve feet. Their pink stomachs throbbed, and at first he feared they were dying. “They must not die!” he said fiercely. “If they did, it would be a matter for the police, and no end of trouble.”
Fuji came up with the milk, and looked very grave when he saw the muddy footprints on the clean sheet.
“Now, Fuji,” said Gissing, “do you suppose they can lap, or will we have to pour it down?”
In spite of his superior manner, Fuji was a good fellow in an emergency. It was he who suggested the fountain-pen filler. They washed the ink out of it, and used it to drip the hot brandy-and-milk down the puppies' throats. Their noses, which had been icy, suddenly became very hot and dry. Gissing feared a fever and thought their temperatures should be taken.
“The only thermometer we have,” he said, “is the one on the porch, with the mercury split in two. I don't suppose that would do. Have you a clinical thermometer, Fuji?”
Fuji felt that his employer was making too much fuss over the matter.
“No, sir,” he said firmly. “They are quite all right. A good sleep will revive them. They will be as fit as possible in the morning.”
Fuji went out into the garden to brush the mud from his neat white jacket. His face was inscrutable. Gissing sat by the spare-room bed until he was sure the puppies were sleeping correctly. He closed the door so that Fuji would not hear him humming a lullaby. Three Blind Mice was the only nursery song he could remember, and he sang it over and over again.
When he tiptoed downstairs, Fuji had gone to bed. Gissing went into his study, lit a pipe, and walked up and down, thinking. By and bye he wrote two letters. One was to a bookseller in the city, asking him to send (at once) one copy of Dr. Holt's book on the Care and Feeding of Children, and a well-illustrated edition of Mother Goose. The other was to Mr. Poodle, asking him to fix a date for the christening of Mr. Gissing's three small nephews, who had come to live with him.