To add to my misery, the dear old widow who owned the Lady Gay cat found out about her needy neighbours, and came quite often with little bowls of custard.
My first impulse when I saw her was to spring to my feet and bark wildly. However, I lay down again. She would not recognise me. I was a black dog now. The cat would know me, but then the cat never came with her, and even if she had, at a hint of recognition from any one, I would be spirited away. So I had to content myself with wagging my tail violently whenever she appeared, and I always got a kind pat on the head.
One day, when I was terribly weary from my long confinement, and was quite a bit downcast, for I did not see how I was ever going to get away, I became desperate.
A beautiful old lady with a high-bred manner, was standing in the cottage which was a one-roomed affair, talking to Dud who was prone on the sofa coughing in a hollow way.
I began to wail softly, and she turned round, and looking out in the shed at me, said, “I should think you would have your dog in here for company. The room is cold, for you have only a feeble fire. He could lie on the sofa, and keep you warm.”
The lady had been there before, and I knew she liked dogs, for she wore a little button with “Be Kind to Animals” on it.
Dud was too cunning to be caught. “I often have him in here, ma’am,” he said. “I just put him out there before you came.”
“Let him loose,” she said. “I would like to see him run about.”
“He’s tired,” said Dud, “he was running all the morning.”