“No,” replied the old sailor, “not exactly—why?”
“Because, if he is, he’ll have to have a ticket the same as the rest,” said the man. “Dogs is half-price, like children.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” cried the Captain apologetically, as he put his hand in his pocket and paid Rover’s fare, adding in a low voice to Mrs Gilmour, while they were ascending the steps from the landing-stage to the pier above, “I do believe that rascal thought I meant to cheat him and smuggle the dog through without paying, the fellow looked at me so suspiciously.”
“Perhaps he did,” replied she laughing. “You know you are a very suspicious-looking gentleman.”
“Humph!” he chuckled. “I think Rover intended to do him, though. He squeezed himself past my legs very artfully!”
“He did, the naughty dog,” said Nellie, who, with Bob, had been much amused by the little incident. “He’s always doing it in London at the railway-stations whenever we go by the underground line; and papa says he wants to cheat the company. He comes after us sometimes, and jumps into the railway-carriage where we are, when we think him miles away and safe at home! Did you ever hear of such a thing, aunt Polly?”
“No, dearie,” she answered as they all stepped out briskly along the rather shaky suspension bridge connecting the pier with the shore, which oscillated under their feet in a way that made Mrs Gilmour anxious to get off it as quickly as she could to firm ground. “Rover is a clever fellow, sure!”
“He’s a very artful dog!” observed the Captain, whereat Rover wagged his tail, as if he understood what he said and appreciated the compliment—“a very artful dog!”
Arrived on shore, presently, the children were in ecstasies at all they saw; for, by only crossing the roadway opposite the land end of the shaky bridge, they at once found themselves within the outlying shrubbery and brushwood of Priory Park, which the kindly proprietor freely threw open for years to the public, without post or paling interfering with their enjoyment, until the vandalism and vulgarity of some cockney excursionists, who wrought untold destruction to the property, led to the rescinding of this privilege!
Although touching the sea, the waters of which lapped its turf at high tide, when once within the park, it seemed to Bob and Nellie as if they were miles away already in the heart of the country; so that, accustomed as they had been only to town life, it may be imagined how great the change was to them in every way.