“This isn’t a best gown, only a muslin—see, I can hold it up so,” and Miss Letty threw the trailing skirt over her arm, showing an underskirt so frail that plainly clad Anne nearly gasped in spite of herself. “And I never wear thick shoes; in fact, I haven’t any, though they might be useful here.”
Then she turned and began chatting gayly in French to Hamlet who came down the path, looking somewhat anxiously behind him. As a dog of his breed Hamlet was doubtless quite perfect; but to Anne, accustomed to the rough-and-ready citizens of Dogtown, to whom a bath and a brushing was full dress, his costume was rather startling. His long hair, which on his crown and shoulders hung in stringy curls like a mop, was shaved close on the lower part of his body, with the exception of a tuft on each hip and bands around his ankles. His clean-shaven face was decorated by a long mustache, he wore a silver bangle collar run with blue ribbon that hardly showed amid his curls, and a bracelet on one ankle. At a signal from his mistress he sprang upon a low wicker stand that served as a porch tea table, sat erect, and saluted.
Tommy was delighted, of course, and Miss Letty made him do all his tricks, of which he knew as many as a circus dog. He waltzed, he said his prayers, he fetched a handkerchief from Miss Letty’s room, although he had only been in the house two days, and so on, ending by turning three somersaults and barking like mad when Miss Letty waved her handkerchief and cried, “Vive la Republique!”
“What do you think of Hamlet?” asked Miss Letty, throwing herself into a hammock to get her breath. “Can Waddles do as many tricks?” she added, rather piqued that Anne was not more enthusiastic, “and does he always mind when you speak to him?”
“I think Hamlet is very clever. No, Waddles does not do tricks; but he knows a great deal, and a great many things that take a great deal of thinking out. For one thing, he knows how to take care of himself, though I can’t say that he always minds so very well; but I am sure that he is a more durable country dog than Hamlet.”
“Minding is everything,” said Miss Letty, decidedly; “Hamlet obeys every word I say, and so he never really has to think for himself. Sh! Tais-toi!” she cried, clapping her hands, for Hamlet having once started to bark in honour of the French Republic had no mind to stop; and as every one knows, who has either owned or lived next door to one, a poodle has a voice of such piercing and incessant shrillness that even a fence cat on a moonlight night cannot compete with it.
Hamlet would not listen, and kept on tearing round the house and barking, until not only all the dogs in the kennels were set agog, but the signal travelled over Dogtown and answering barks could be heard for a mile away, while Miss Jule put her fingers in her ears and Anne burst out laughing in spite of herself.
“He’s a little upset,” said his mistress when he was finally quiet; “he is not used to so much space, and it’s gone to his head.”—“Come,” she called, speaking French rapidly, “sit up and smoke your pipe to calm yourself, and read the paper.”
Hamlet meekly mounted the stand again, while his mistress produced a short clay pipe from her work-bag that hung by the hammock and stuck it in his mouth, perched Miss Jule’s eyeglasses upon his nose, and held the morning paper before him.