“Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?” asked the Doctor.
“Why, of course!” said Jip. “And those are only a few of the easy smells—the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in the head. Wait now, and I’ll tell you some of the harder scents that are coming on this wind—a few of the dainty ones.”
Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.
For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.
“Bricks,” he whispered, very low—“old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote—or perhaps a granary—with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau-drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses’ drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting through the rotting leaves; and—and—and—”
“Any parsnips?” asked Gub-Gub.
“No,” said Jip. “You always think of things to eat. No parsnips whatever. And no snuff—plenty of pipes and cigarettes, and a few cigars. But no snuff. We must wait till the wind changes to the South.”
“Yes, it’s a poor wind, that,” said Gub-Gub. “I think you’re a fake, Jip. Who ever heard of finding a man in the middle of the ocean just by smell! I told you you couldn’t do it.”
“Look here,” said Jip, getting really angry. “You’re going to get a bite on the nose in a minute! You needn’t think that just because the Doctor won’t let us give you what you deserve, that you can be as cheeky as you like!”
“Stop quarreling!” said the Doctor—“Stop it! Life’s too short. Tell me, Jip, where do you think those smells are coming from?”