His own university! His own university! The professor repeated the three words, as he dashed into the city with the academic cabman's fastest horse. For weeks his detectives had watched every laboratory within fifty miles. But—his own college! With the density which sometimes submerges a superior intellect, it had never occurred to him that he might find his own dog in the medical school of his own institution. Stupidly he sat gazing at the back of the gamin who slunk beside the aversion of the driver on the box. The professor seemed to himself to be driving through the terms of a false syllogism.
The cabman drew up in a filthy and savage neighborhood, in whose grim purlieus the St. George professors did not take their walks abroad. The negro boy tumbled off the box.
The professor sat, trembling like a woman. The boy went into the tenement, whistling. When he came out he did not whistle. His evil little face had fallen. His arms were empty.
"The critter's dum gone," he said.
"Gone?"
"He's dum goneter de college. Dey'se tuk him, sah. Dum dog to go so yairly."
The countenance of the professor blazed with the mingling fires of horror and of hope. The excited driver lashed the St. George horse to foam; in six minutes the cab drew up at the medical school. The passenger ran up the walk like a boy, and dashed into the building. He had never entered it before. He was obliged to inquire his way, like a rustic on a first trip to town. After some delay and difficulty he found the janitor, and, with the assurance of position, stated his case.
But the janitor smiled.
"I will go now—at once—and remove the dog," announced the professor. "In which direction is it? My little girl—There is no time to lose. Which door did you say?"
But now the janitor did not smile. "Excuse me, sir," he said frigidly, "I have no orders to admit strangers." He backed up against a closed door, and stood there stolidly. The professor, burning with human rage, leaned over and shook the door. It was locked.