His subsequent career, I grieve to say, was a long succession of iniquities. On our arrival in England we took him down with us to Norfolk, thinking there he must be out of harm’s way. At first all went well. He spent his time meekly lying under the dining-room table, looking as pious as a China pug. But, alas! he chanced one day to observe one of those irresistible pheasants he used to chase in the mountains of Japan. From that moment he was lost. Furious keepers brought tales of a ‘great yallow, savage baste havin’ scared them thur burds, ‘til there’s no doin’ northin’ with ‘em’; of nests destroyed, coops overturned, and countless other offences too numerous to recount. Chang narrowly escaped being shot on more than one occasion; and from that time until his departure from the land of game he was securely imprisoned in the stable, there to repent his sins in solitude.
What was I to do with such a dog? My friends urged me to sell him, and I had several excellent opportunities of doing so, but I could not in that mercenary fashion part with my old companion.
Looking back on those days now, I marvel that we were not banished from civilized society; but it is a long lane that has no turning, and at last Chang began to reform. Whether it was the wire-muzzle I made him wear, or the recollection of the well-deserved and severe thrashing he received on the terrible occasion when he worried a flock of sheep, I know not; but slowly and surely he gave up his many evil ways, until at length he became the steady, sober watch-dog and ever constant and faithful companion he is now.
As I look at my old favourite stretched out on the hearthrug at my feet in a way peculiar to chows, I realize that we ran a great risk of getting ourselves disliked in those days. It is of no use for him to pretend he does not understand me, as I know by the placid smile on his wicked old face and the sly wink in his sleepy eye that he does so perfectly.
But I often wonder if dogs have any memories of the past, and if Chang sometimes thinks, as I so often do, of those happy, far-off days in fair Japonica.
WELLS GARDNER, DARTON AND CO., LTD., LONDON