“Upon my word!” says Jimmy Jocks when he first sees me. “Wot a swell you are! You’re the image of your grand-dad when he made his début at the Crystal Palace. He took four firsts and three specials.” But I knew he was only trying to throw heart into me. They might scrub, and they might rub, and they might pipe-clay, but they couldn’t pipe-clay the insides of me, and they was black-and-tan.
Then we came to a garden, which it was not, but the biggest hall in the world. Inside there was lines of benches a few miles long, and on them sat every dog in America. If all the dog snatchers in Montreal had worked night and day for a year, they couldn’t have caught so many dogs. And they was all shouting and barking and howling so vicious that my heart stopped beating. For at first I thought they was all enraged at my presuming to intrude. But after I got in my place they kept at it just the same, barking at every dog as he come in: daring him to fight, and ordering him out, and asking him what breed of dog he thought he was, anyway. Jimmy Jocks was chained just behind me, and he said he never see so fine a show. “That’s a hot class you’re in, my lad,” he says, looking over into my street, where there were thirty bull terriers. They was all as white as cream, and each so beautiful that if I could have broke my chain I would have run all the way home and hid myself under the horse trough.
All night long they talked and sang, and passed greetings with old pals, and the homesick puppies howled dismal. Them that couldn’t sleep wouldn’t let no others sleep, and all the electric lights burned in the roof, and in my eyes. I could hear Jimmy Jocks snoring peaceful, but I could only doze by jerks, and when I dozed I dreamed horrible. All the dogs in the hall seemed coming at me for daring to intrude, with their jaws red and open, and their eyes blazing like the lights in the roof. “You’re a street dog! Get out, you street dog!” they yells. And as they drives me out, the pipe clay drops off me, and they laugh and shriek; and when I looks down I see that I have turned into a black-and-tan.
They was most awful dreams, and next morning, when Miss Dorothy comes and gives me water in a pan, I begs and begs her to take me home; but she can’t understand. “How well Kid is!” she says. And when I jumps into the Master’s arms and pulls to break my chain, he says, “If he knew all as he had against him, miss, he wouldn’t be so gay.” And from a book they reads out the names of the beautiful high-bred terriers which I have got to meet. And I can’t make ’em understand that I only want to run away and hide myself where no one will see me.
Then suddenly men comes hurrying down our street and begins to brush the beautiful bull-terriers; and the Master rubs me with a towel so excited that his hands trembles awful, and Miss Dorothy tweaks my ears between her gloves, so that the blood runs to ’em, and they turn pink and stand up straight and sharp.
“Now, then, Nolan,” says she, her voice shaking just like his fingers, “keep his head up–and never let the judge lose sight of him.” When I hears that my legs breaks under me, for I knows all about judges. Twice the old Master goes up before the judge for fighting me with other dogs, and the judge promises him if he ever does it again he’ll chain him up in jail. I knew he’d find me out. A judge can’t be fooled by no pipe-clay. He can see right through you, and he reads your insides.
The judging-ring, which is where the judge holds out, was so like a fighting-pit that when I come in it, and find six other dogs there, I springs into position, so that when they lets us go I can defend myself. But the Master smooths down my hair and whispers, “Hold ’ard, Kid, hold ’ard. This ain’t a fight,” says he. “Look your prettiest,” he whispers. “Please, Kid, look your prettiest”; and he pulls my leash so tight that I can’t touch my pats to the sawdust, and my nose goes up in the air. There was millions of people a-watching us from the railings, and three of our kennel-men, too, making fun of the Master and me, and Miss Dorothy with her chin just reaching to the rail, and her eyes so big that I thought she was a-going to cry. It was awful to think that when the judge stood up and exposed me, all those people, and Miss Dorothy, would be there to see me driven from the Show.
The judge he was a fierce-looking man with specs on his nose, and a red beard. When I first come in he didn’t see me, owing to my being too quick for him and dodging behind the Master. But when the Master drags me round and I pulls at the sawdust to keep back, the judge looks at us careless-like, and then stops and glares through his specs, and I knew it was all up with me.
“Are there any more?” asks the judge to the gentleman at the gate, but never taking his specs from me.
The man at the gate looks in his book. “Seven in the novice class,” says he. “They’re all here. You can go ahead,” and he shuts the gate.