“Well, no,” remarked the unhappy attaché of the dog. “Not having had an appointment with the dog I didn’t provide myself with a leash for him.”
“Take him into the baggage-car,” said the conductor briefly, and slammed his way into the next car.
There seemed nothing else to be done, but it was most annoying to be thus forced on the notice of his fellow-travellers, when his commission required that he be as inconspicuous as possible.
At Jersey City he hoped to escape and leave the dog to the tender mercies of the baggage man, but that official was craftily waiting for him and handed the animal over to his unwilling master with a satisfaction ill-proportioned to the fee he had received for caring for him.
Then began a series of misfortunes. Disappointment and suspicion stalked beside him, and behind him a voice continually whispered his chief’s last injunction: “Don’t let anything hinder you!”
Frantically he tried first one place and then another, but all to no effect. Nobody apparently wanted to care for a stray white dog, and his very haste aroused suspicion. Once he came near being arrested as a dog thief. He could not get rid of that dog! Yet he must not let him follow him! Would he have to have the animal sent home to Washington as the only solution of the problem? Then a queer fancy seized him that just in some such way had Miss Julia Bentley been shadowing his days for nearly three years now; and he had actually this very day been considering calmly whether he might not have to marry her, just because she was so persistent in her taking possession of him. Not that she was unladylike, of course; no, indeed! She was stately and beautiful, and had never offended. But she had always quietly, persistently, taken it for granted that he would be her attendant whenever she chose; and she always chose whenever he was in the least inclined to enjoy any other woman’s company.
He frowned at himself. Was there something weak about his character that a woman or a dog could so easily master him? Would any other employee in the office, once trusted with his great commission, have allowed it to be hindered by a dog?
Gordon could not afford to waste any more time. He must get rid of him at once!
The express office would not take a dog without a collar and chain unless he was crated; and the delays and exasperating hindrances seemed to be interminable. But at last, following the advice of a kindly officer, he took the dog to an institution in New York where, he was told, dogs were boarded and cared for, and where he finally disposed of him, having first paid ten dollars for the privilege. As he settled back in a taxicab with his watch in his hand, he congratulated himself that he had still ample time to reach his hotel and get into evening dress before he must present himself for his work.
Within three blocks of the hotel the cab came to such a sudden standstill that Gordon was thrown to his knees.