"Name of 'Earty?" he interrogated.
"I am Mr. Hearty," was the reply, uttered in a voice that was intended to suggest dignity with just a dash of Christian forbearance.
"I brought your dawg," said the man with ingratiating geniality, baring three dark-brown stumps that had once been teeth; "I brought your dawg," he repeated, looking down at what appeared to be four enormous legs loosely attached to a long, sinuous body.
"You're mistaken," said Mr. Hearty. "It's not mine; I don't keep a dog."
"My mistake, guv'nor," replied the man with a grin; "I should 'a said the dawg wot you're a-lookin' for. 'Ere, Lily, drop it."
This last remark was addressed to the dog, who, seeing Mr. Hearty's soft black felt hat lying on a box, had seized it in her enormous jaws. She looked up at her master and shook the hat roguishly with a gurgle of joy; but a sharp cuff on the muzzle caused her to drop what her teeth and saliva had already ruined.
"This is just the dawg you're wantin'," continued the man pleasantly, indicating Lily, who had lain down and was now occupying the entire centre of the shop, looking about her with distended jaws and a great flap of whitey-red tongue hanging out amiably. "Playful as a kitten, and an 'ouse-dog as 'ud eat a burglar an' then go back to dawg-biscuit wivout a murmur. She's some dawg, is Lily!"
"But I don't want a dog," replied Mr. Hearty, eyeing his hat, which the man was endeavouring to clean with his coat-sleeve. "Will you please take it away?" There was a note of asperity in his voice.
"Don't want a dawg? Don't want a dawg?" There was menace in the man's manner that caused Mr. Hearty some anxiety, and he looked appealingly at Smith, his chief assistant, and the boy, who stood regarding the episode with an enjoyment they dare not express.
"Don't want a dawg?" repeated the man for the third time. "You jest read this," thrusting out towards Mr. Hearty the dirty piece of paper he held in his hand. "You jest read this an' you'll ruddy well see that yer do want a dawg, an' this 'ere is the dawg yer want."