VII
THE HEGIRA
In my ménage was a bull-terrier puppy—brindled, bow-legged and bold—at least, Jeams declared Dix to be a bull-pup of purest blood when he sold him to me for five dollars and a suit of clothes that had cost sixty. I found later that he had given a quarter for him to a negro stable-boy who had been sent to dispose of him. Like the American people, he was of many strains; but, like the American people, he proved to have good stuff in him, and he had the soul of a lion. One eye was bleared, a memento of some early and indiscreet insolence to some decisive-clawed cat; his ears had been crookedly clipped and one perked out, the other in, and his tail had been badly bobbed; but was as expressive as the immortal Rab's eloquent stump. He feared and followed Jeams, but he adored me. And to be adored by woman or dog is something for any man to show at the last day. To lie and blink at me by the hour was his chief occupation. To crawl up and lick my hand, or failing that, my boot, was his heaven.
I always felt that, with all my faults, which none knew like myself, there must be some basic good in me to inspire so devoted a love.
When I determined to leave for the West the night of my final break with Lilian Poole, in my selfishness I forgot Dix; but when I reached home that night, sobered and solitary, there was Dix with his earnest, adoring gaze, his shrewd eye fixed on me, and his friendly twist of the back. His joy at my mere presence consoled me and gave me spirit, though it did not affect my decision.
Jeams, who had followed me from college, at times hung around my office, carried Miss Poole my notes and flowers and, in the hour of my prosperity, blossomed out in a gorgeousness of apparel that partly accounted for my heavy expense account, as well as for the rapid disappearance of the little private stock I occasionally kept or tried to keep in a deceptive-looking desk which I used as a sideboard for myself and friends. He usually wore an old suit of mine, in which he looked surprisingly well, but on occasions he wore a long-tailed coat, a red necktie and a large soft, light hat which, cocked on the side of his head, gave him the air of an Indian potentate. I think he considered himself in some sort a partner. He always referred to me and my business as "us" and "our" business, and, on some one's asking him derisively if he were a partner of mine, he replied, "Oh, no, sir, only what you might term a minor connectee of the Captain." He was, however, a very useful fellow, being ready to do anything in the world I ordered, except when he was tight or had some piece of rascality on foot—occasions by no means rare. He wore, at election time, a large and flaming badge announcing that he was something in his party—the opposite party to mine; but I have reason to believe that when I was in politics he perjured himself freely and committed other crimes against the purity of the ballot on which economists declare all Representative Government is founded. One of my ardent friends once informed me that he thought I ought not to allow Jeams to wear that badge—it was insulting me openly. I told him that he was a fool, that I was so afraid Jeams would insist on my wearing one, too, I was quite willing to compromise. In fact, I had gotten rather dependent on him. Then he and I held such identical views as to Peck, not to mention some other mutual acquaintances, and Jeams could show his contempt in such delightfully insolent ways.
I had intimated to Jeams some time before, immediately after my first serious reverse in the stock market, that I was no longer as flush as I had been, and that unless affairs looked up I might move on to fresh pastures—or, possibly, I put it, to a wider field for the exercise of my powers; whereupon he promptly indicated his intention to accompany me and share my fortune. But I must say, he showed plainly his belief that it was a richer pasture which I was contemplating moving into, and he viewed the prospect with a satisfaction much like that of a cat which, in the act of lapping milk, has cream set before it. The only thing that puzzled him was that he could not understand why I wanted more than I had. He said so plainly.
"What you want to go 'way for, Cap'n? Whyn't you stay where you is? You done beat 'em all—evy one of 'em——"
"Oh! no, I haven't."