Our relationship being founded on this basis, I spent a good deal of my spare time in the room, which until Bill's arrival, had been nothing but my sleeping place. Soon the bare walls and the dilapidated condition of the furniture began to grate on me and, slowly, I improved our home. I bought a few pictures from a peddler, purchased two plaster casts from an Italian, and even employed a glazier to put our window in good shape. Bill and I took pride in our home, and thought it the very acme of coziness. You see, neither one of us had ever known a real home.
But dogs, as well as men, need exercise, and, in the afternoon, attired in our best—Bill with his glittering collar, on which the proceeds of a whole night had been expended—we took our walk along the avenue. He was beautifully ugly, and the usual pleasant witticisms, such as, "Which is the dog?" were often inflicted upon us. But we didn't mind, being a well-established firm of partners, who could afford to overlook the comments of mere outsiders.
In the midst of our prosperity came an unexpected break. A reform wave swept over the city and closed most of the "resorts." The loss of my position left us in a badly crippled financial condition.
Bill and I had lived in a style befitting two celebrities. Porterhouse steaks, fine chops, and cutlets had been frequent items on our bills of fare. The drop was sudden and emphatic. Stews, fried liver, and hash took the place of the former substantial meals, and our constitutions did not thrive very well. It did not even stop at that, for, ere long, we were regular habitués of the free-lunch counters. It often almost broke my heart to see my Bill, well bred and blooded, feed on the scraps thrown to him from a lunch counter. But there was a dog for you! Instead of turning his nose up at it, or eating it with growl and disgust, Bill would devour the pickled tripe or corned beef with a well-feigned relish. Between the mouthfuls his glance would seek mine and he would say, quite plainly: "Don't worry on my account. I'm getting along very nicely on sour tripe. In fact, it is a favorite dish of mine."
You poor, soulless Bill, of whom many men; with souls, could learn a lesson in grit and pluck!
During that spell of idleness our hours in the room were less cheerful than before. I must confess that my "blues" were inspired by material cares, and not by any regrets or self-reproaches; but, whatever the cause, they were sitting oppressively on me, and I often found myself in an atmosphere of the most ultra indigo. It did not take Bill very long to understand these moods, and, by right of his partnership, he took a hand in dispelling them.
He would place himself directly in front of me, and stare at me with unflinching gaze. Not noticing any effect of his hypnotic suggestions, he would go further, and place his paw on my knee, with a little pleading whine. Having awakened my attention, he would put himself into proper oratorical pose and loosen the flood-gates of his rhetoric.
"Say, Kil, I gave you credit for more sense and courage. Here you are, sitting with your hands in your lap, and bemoaning a fate which is largely of your own making. Besides—excuse me for being so brutally frank—you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Big and strong, you live in idleness, and now you kick because you are down and out and deprived of your despicable means of livelihood. Owen Kildare, brace up and be a man. You are not friendless. I am here. True, I'm only a dog, a soulless brute, but I'm your Bill, and we're going to stick until we both win out!"
You will not offend me by calling me a silly fool for putting these words into Bill's mouth. Perhaps I err greatly in believing that Bill was not without influence over me, or that I could understand him; perhaps it was all imagination, but, if it was—and I doubt it—it was good, because, no matter what it may be, whether imagination, inspiration or aspiration, if it leads up and not down, it cannot be too highly appreciated.
There were times when Bill's speech was either less convincing or my period of blues more pronounced than usual, and then he would resort to more drastic measures. He undertook to prove by the most vivid object lesson that a buoyancy of spirits is the first essential. Dogs, when gay and playful, run and romp. Bill made believe he was gay, and romped and raced and ran. If you will take note of the fact that the exact measurements of the room were fifteen by twelve feet, you can easily imagine the difficulties opposing Bill's exercise. Snorting and puffing, he would cavort about the narrow precincts, now running into a bedpost, now bumping against the shaky washstand. But he always accomplished his object, because, before his collapse from his exertions, he never failed to put me into a paroxysm of laughter. No "blues" could ever withstand Bill's method.