“Hallo, here’s Skitanglebags,” said one of them, referring to him by his accepted nickname, “drunk as an owl. Let’s muzzle him.”
“No; cork him,” suggested the other.
MacDaly, in his cool and comfortable bed, felt his soul revolting from both of the two forms of torture proposed. He knew that the boys were quite capable of either rolling and smothering him in the snow or of stopping up his mouth, for they were at that age which La Fontaine says is “without pity.”
“Gentlemen,” he piped up shrilly, “would either of you be knowing any one that might for any reason be wanting a pup?”
True to the dog-trading instinct which has made Halifax vie with Constantinople as an agreeable place of residence for the canine tribe, the lads exclaimed in eager concert, “Have you got a pup?”
Yes; he had a pup, he said, and during a discussion of its merits he cunningly persuaded the boys to assist him to his feet. Then with one on each side of him, he ambled along the street nodding amiably to any acquaintances he happened to meet and suppressing with difficulty his strong desire to break forth into singing.
The two lads he was decoying home with him under pretence of wishing them to see the pup that he described as surpassing in beauty all other pups that had ever been offered for sale to them.
“What breed is it, Skitanglebags?” asked one of them.
“And what is the breed you might be wanting to have, if you’d not be above mentioning it?” asked MacDaly guardedly.
“Bull terrier.”