He made inquiries of a passing dog—
“You haven’t smelt my man about anywhere, have you?”
(A dog, of course, would never speak of seeing anybody or anything, smell being his leading sense. Reaching the top of a hill, he would say to his companion—“Lovely smell from here, I always think; I could sit and sniff here all the afternoon.” Or, proposing a walk, he would say—“I like the road by the canal, don’t you? There’s something interesting to catch your nose at every turn.”)
“No, I haven’t smelt any man in particular,” answered the other dog. “What sort of a smelling man is yours?”
“Oh, an egg-and-bacony sort of a man, with a dash of soap about him.”
“That’s nothing to go by,” retorted the other; “most men would answer to that description, this time of the morning. Where were you when you last noticed him?”
At this moment he caught sight of me, and came up, pleased to find me, but vexed with me for having got lost.
“Oh, here you are,” he barked; “didn’t you see me go round the corner? Do keep closer. Bothered if half my time isn’t taken up, finding you and losing you again.”
The incident appeared to have made him bad-tempered; he was just in the humour for a row of any sort. At the top of Sloane Street a stout military-looking gentleman started running after the Chelsea bus. With a “Hooroo” William Smith was after him. Had the old gentleman taken no notice, all would have been well. A butcher boy, driving just behind, would—I could read it in his eye—have caught Smith a flick as he darted into the road, which would have served him right; the old gentleman would have captured his bus; and the affair would have been ended. Unfortunately, he was that type of retired military man all gout and curry and no sense. He stopped to swear at the dog. That, of course, was what Smith wanted. It is not often he gets a scrimmage with a full-grown man. “They’re a poor-spirited lot, most of them,” he thinks; “they won’t even answer you back. I like a man who shows a bit of pluck.” He was frenzied with delight at his success. He flew round his victim, weaving whooping circles and curves that paralyzed the old gentleman as though they had been the mystic figures of a Merlin. The colonel clubbed his umbrella, and attempted to defend himself. I called to the dog, I gave good advice to the colonel (I judged him to be a colonel; the louder he spoke, the less one could understand him), but both were too excited to listen to me. A sympathetic bus driver leaned over, and whispered hoarse counsel.
“Ketch ’im by the tail, sir,” he advised the old gentleman; “don’t you be afraid of him; you ketch ’im firmly by the tail.”