"Glad to hear it," says I. "As a rule, I don't run no rock-of-ages refuge, but I likes to be neighborly, so help yourself."
We fixed it up that way, and about every so often I'd see Doc Pinphoodle slidin' in the back window, with a worried look on his face, and iron rust on his trousers. He was a quiet neighbor, though—didn't torture the cornet, or deal in voice culture, or get me to cash checks that came back with remarks in red ink written on 'em.
I was wonderin' how the Vedic stunt was catchin' on, when all of a sudden he buds out in an eight-dollar hat, this year's model, and begins to lug around an iv'ry-handled cane.
"I'm glad they're comin' your way, Doc," says I.
"Thanks," says he. "If I can in any measure repay some of the many kindnesses which you have—"
"Sponge it off," says I. "Maybe I'll want to throw a lady off the scent myself, some day."
A week or so later I misses him altogether, and the janitor tells me he's paid up and moved. Well, they come and go like that, so it don't do to feel lonesome; but I had the floor swept under the couch reg'lar, on a chance that he might show up again.
It was along about then that I hears about the bull pup. I'd been wantin' to have one out to Primrose Park—where I goes to prop up the weekend, you know. Pinckney was tellin' me of a friend of his that owns a likely-lookin' litter about two months old, so one Saturday afternoon I starts to hoof it over and size 'em up.
Now that was reg'lar, wa'n't it? You wouldn't think a two-eyed man like me could go astray just tryin' to pick out a bull pup, would you? But look what I runs into! I'd gone about four miles from home, and was hittin' up a Daddy Weston clip on the side path, when I sees one of them big bay-windowed bubbles slidin' past like a train of cars. There was a girl on the back seat that looks kind of natural. She sees me, too, shouts to François to put on the emergency brake, and begins wavin' her parasol at me to hurry on. It was Sadie Sullivan.
"Hurry up, Shorty! Run!" she yells. "There isn't a minute to lose."