Of course he kept in touch with Clarissa, wrote her polite letters, and went down to Clapham occasionally. One Sunday afternoon he was walking across the Common. He went to Clapham partly by omnibus and partly on his legs; he no longer flustered to catch a particular train.
Do you know these suburban commons? They are most melancholy. One feels really grateful to the jerry builder for creeping up so closely to them, as closely as he dares. No doubt they are lungs for the people—but that is not a particularly interesting point. The people! They play cricket on the Common, leaving it bare in patches, like a giant head beset by a parasite. They throw paper on it; screws of paper, fluttering ends of paper, strips of orange peel, empty bottles. The Common! It is sacred to the people. No builder will ever be allowed to devirginate it. Arnold was fond of talking like that. He used to swell out proudly when he said it, as if that stretch of sad brown grass and cracking earth belonged to him. The sanctity of the people! Preserve me from it! Give me the stately gardens of the Inn, with elms, rooks, the terrace, and memories.
Well, he was walking on the Common, sorrowfully and slowly, not caring a rush whether Clarissa was waiting for him or not. Suddenly he saw a long, grayish-blue something shoot straight toward him like an arrow. Have you seen these deerhounds run? Head down, paws out—it is a charming sight. Arnold very nearly infected me with his enthusiasm for Sol. Yes, it was Sol. He kept bounding shoulder high on his master, breaking over him like a wave. Sol! Arnold—soft-hearted little chap—never denied that a lump came into his throat and left him standing dizzy on the Common. But he was collected enough to grab Sol’s collar—not at all a necessary precaution, as he ought to have known. The beast would have gone straight for the throat of anyone who tried to take him from the master that he had just found.
A rough-looking customer with a hoarse voice and a voluminous yellow neckerchief came up and began to be abusive, in the most picturesque language.
Have you guessed? Clarissa sold Sol. Sold him for five pounds, with which to bribe her mother. Mrs. Neaves, who was most accommodating, took it with the shirt-and-collar business. Clarissa’s beauty brought the old woman luck.
“A good-looking gal she wur,” said the thick-voiced man. “Brought him down to my place in the Borough and I give ’er five quid.”
Arnold was fifty-five pounds and a wife to the bad. But he got his dog back.
Clarissa! She hadn’t wasted her time. When Arnold threw her over she promptly married another fellow—a City man; in the wholesale fruit way, I fancy. He had lodged next door to the widow lady, and those back gardens offer opportunities.
Arnold went on a six-weeks’ walking tour, for Sol’s sake.
“They haven’t been giving him half enough exercise,” he said indignantly. “These pure-bred deerhounds get paralyzed in the hind legs if they don’t get enough exercise.”