"So you want to railroad me to an asylum, eh?" he snarled. "Well, nuts to that! As far as I'm concerned, we're back on the old basis. You go your way and I go mine. And no brats, mind you! or I'll call the whole thing off. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Winnie," Germaine replied, in a small, frightened voice. "You make yourself perfectly clear."
"Okay," he told her. "Come on, Ponto!"
He had the nerve to snap his fingers at me. Not even when I had him in the Packard, headed for White Plains and chloroform, had he stood nearer death, but Germaine's hand—cold and little—rested briefly on my ears and I mastered my rage.
I followed him into his bedroom and he slammed the door behind me.
"See here, you black son of a bitch," he truthfully addressed me. "You seem to have made one hell of a mess of my affairs. Oh, I don't suppose you can understand me now that you're a dog again, but just the same, for two cents I'd send you to the boneyard. I've still to find out how much hell you've been raising with my business, but damn it all!!! Couldn't you tell that it didn't suit my plans to be clubby with Jimmie?"
I padded loyally across the bedroom and laid my head on his lap. He milked my ears automatically and I rejoiced, because the more he thought of me as Ponto the less likely he was to discover my human personality. I had not yet decided when to kill him.
"Yes, damn it! hound," Winnie continued. "This is one thing the experts will never know about. It's out of this world. Three weeks as an involuntary Great Dane, ending up in a shot-gun marriage with a big brindle bitch named Buglebell III! If you want to know my idea of shooting ducks in a rain-barrel, that is it. No privacy at all. Just an old boy writing things down in the stud-book. Jimmie may think I'm mean but after that experience who wants off-spring, cannon-fodder or kennel-fodder? I don't. Neither would you, Ponto. I suppose," he added, "that legally speaking you are the putative father, not me. Gosh! what an experience!"
He reached over to the night-table and pulled the brandy-bottle out from the little cupboard, which was neatly fitted out with glasses, bottle-openers, a syphon and a decanter. He glared accusingly at the bottle.
"Damn you!" he exclaimed, "It's almost gone. My best brandy! Whoever told you you could touch my liquor? Oh, well, can't say that I blame you. Here, I'll let you smell the cork."