Of course I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but I guessed what it was. When she said, “But your name is on the collar,” I listened anxiously for the next.
“But,” said my nice coloured woman, “doesn’t the collar go with the dog?”
Something else followed, then my Ellen said, “I did notice it was too big for him. It’s way down over his shoulders. What do you say?”
A long silence came after this. Ellen was listening intently. Finally she hung up the receiver, and looked down at me with a mystified air. “Poor lady—she seems all upset. She said something about a dog thief’s dog, and a collar being stolen. Perhaps she has two dogs.”
Perhaps she is going to have, I thought, but of course I said nothing.
“We’ll go see her in the morning,” said Ellen. “I have to work near there, and now we’ll go home, and have some supper.”
I was not too tired to jump up, and lick her kind, old fingers. Then she led the way to her home, which was in an apartment-house on this same broad avenue. We tugged up six flights of stairs, and while we were going up she said, “I s’pose you’ve been accustomed to elevators, little dog. Poor folks can’t have all the nice things the rich have.” There was nothing to be said to this, except to give her silent sympathy, and stand back while she unlocked her door, and let herself into a neat little set of rooms. She had two bed-rooms and a kitchen, and her son, who was a sidewalk usher in a fashionable hotel, lived with her.
The tiny kitchen was cute. It had a gas stove, a table, two rocking-chairs and two windows. It was just big enough to turn round in. The son, Robert Lee, came up the stairs just after we did, and she hastened to tell him my story.
He laughed heartily, throwing back his head, and showing every tooth he possessed—those teeth of negroes aren’t as white as they look. It’s the contrast of their dark skin that makes them seem to have whiter teeth than white people.
He slipped the collar off my neck, and laid it on a shelf. “It’s a bull-terrier’s collar,” he said, “and this fellow is a fox-terrier, and ought to have a narrower one. I know, ’cause I see the rich folks’ dogs at the hotel. Some one has slipped the wrong collar on this fellow. Yes, take him to that address in the morning. Maybe there’ll be a reward.”