‘One every two hours until the patient is better.’ By mistake the pills all falling into his bread-and-milk, were swallowed in one dose, but fortunately no fatal result ensued.
The next day we returned to Tokio. How were we to dispose of the poor suffering one during the four hours’ rickshaw drive? Finally Chang was rolled up in a rug at my feet and all went well for the first twelve miles or so, when our rickshaw coolie in the shafts took it into his head to bolt down a steep hill. Result, a smash--a confused heap of mistress and dog on the ground, a broken-kneed coolie, to say nothing of the telescoping of the other rickshaws in the rear, which, not being able to stop in their downward course, were literally jammed together, the shafts of one going straight through the back of the one in front. Stiff and shaken as I was, I have seldom laughed more than at the sight the unfortunate occupants presented in their original prison. However, after some difficulty, at last we arrived home, and the next day Chang was sent off to that most excellent Japanese institution, the Komobar, where, after a month’s residence and the previously mentioned bill, he returned home convalescent, not, however, in his former unblemished condition. Having had inflammation of both lungs, it was thought necessary to blister his sides, and the absence of hair was replaced by a blue linen wadded coat, tied on with tape, and with two holes for the front-legs.
THE KIND OLD ‘ISHA-SAN’ (p. 131).
Poor Chang, how he hated being the laughing-stock of those odious curs in the neighbourhood. But we tried our best to console him by making him a coat of yellow iron-cloth, which we likened to the late Li Hung Chang’s renowned yellow jacket.
Chang’s little friends, the Japanese spaniels, were also his companions in hospital. Strange to say, about this time Dodo caught small-pox, or what Dr. Hitchikito pronounced to be such, and was promptly bundled off to the hospital for a three-weeks’ residence in a large wicker cage, with strict quarantine, whence he returned somewhat thinner, but just as pompous as ever.
Little Yum-Yum’s illness was of a different nature. During our absence from Tokio she pined to such an extent that her little brain could no longer stand the strain, and she developed brain-fever. We received one morning a frantic telegram from the cook to say ‘Yum-Yum seriously ill; under treatment.’ On our return, we found the patient better, looking very interesting, lying in a small brown basket before the kitchen fire. She had sufficient strength to give a weak little bark of joy, and feebly lick our hands with her tiny red tongue. We were told she had literally been packed in ice to reduce the fever, until her silken coat stood out stiff and straight like frozen snow.
They are clever men those Japanese veterinaries. Where else in the world would an animal have been treated in that scientific and up-to-date fashion?
I think there were moments when Chang must have been possessed of an evil spirit, otherwise what can have put it into his disobedient head to follow me to church one Sunday morning, in spite of strict orders to remain at home?
After he had been three times removed from the aisle by the irate churchwarden, I was at last obliged to escort him myself to what I thought was a safe distance, and, leaving him trotting sadly away up the little path towards the house, I returned to church and my devotions quite happy in my mind.