Jimmy has trained his bloodhound to watch things. It is very good at watching. It watched a cat up a tree all one night, and never left off once: it is very faithful like that. And it bays quite well, without being taught to. It bayed up to four hundred and ten one night, and would have gone past that but a man opened a window and told it not to. He sent it a water-bottle to play with instead.
Jimmy's bloodhound is a splendid fighter. It fought a dog much bigger than itself and nearly choked it. The other dog was trying to swallow it, and Jimmy had to pull his dog out.
Jimmy says he has only once seen his bloodhound really frightened. It was when it followed Jimmy up into his bedroom, and saw itself in the mirror in the wardrobe. Jimmy says it was because it came upon itself too suddenly. It made it brood a great deal, and Jimmy had to give it a certain herb to reassure it.
Jimmy takes it out every day, searching for German spies. It goes round sniffing everywhere—in hopes. It is a very strong sniffer and full of zeal, and one day it did it.
A man was looking at a shop-window, where they sell sausages and pork pies. He was studying them, Jimmy says. Jimmy says he never would have guessed he was a German spy if his bloodhound hadn't sniffed him out. It walked round the man twice, and in doing so wrapped the chain round the man's legs. Jimmy says it was to cut off his retreat. The man moved backwards and stepped on the bloodhound's toe, and the bloodhound began to bay like anything. Jimmy says it showed the bloodhound was hot upon the scent.
It then sniffed a piece out of the man's trousers.
There was another man there; he was looking on and laughing. He said to Jimmy, "Pull in, sonny; you've got a bite."
But he stopped laughing when the German spy tripped up and fell on top of the bloodhound; for the German spy shouted out, "Ach, Himmel!" The man who was looking on shouted, "What ho!" and put all the fingers of both hands into his mouth and gave one terrific whistle. The bloodhound held on tightly underneath the German, baying faithfully, till the policeman came and forced them apart. The German spy never said anything to the policeman or to the man or to Jimmy, but it seemed he couldn't say enough to the bloodhound. He kept turning round to say things, as they came into his head, on his way to the police-station.
Jimmy asked the German if he could keep the piece of cloth his bloodhound had sniffed out.
Jimmy has made the piece of cloth into a kind of medal with a piece of wire, and has fastened it to the bloodhound's collar. Jimmy says if he gets a lot of pieces of cloth like this he is going to make a patchwork quilt for the bloodhound.