Dr. Bowdler gave his help, as he had promised, but to no purpose. A week passed in the search without success, until at last Thor brought it. The dog was discovered one night in the kitchen, waiting for his supper, as he had been used to do: his affection for his new master, I suppose, not having overcome his recollection of the flesh-pots of Egypt. They followed him (Jane, the Doctor, and Andy) out to that maze of narrow streets, near Fairmount, called, I think, Francisville. He stopped at a low house, used in front as a cake-shop, the usual young girl with high cheek-bones and oily curls waiting within.
"The dog's owner?" the trading look going out of her eyes suddenly, "Oh, are you his friends? He's low to-night: mother's up with him since supper; mother's kept him since last Tuesday,"—fussing out from behind the counter. "Take chairs, Ma'am. I'll call her. Go out, you Stevy,"—driving out two or three urchins in their bed-gowns who were jamming up the door-way.
Miserably poor the whole place was; the woman, when she came down, a hard skinflint—in Andy's phrase—in the face: just home from her day's washing, her gown pinned up, her arms flabby and red.
"Good evenin', Sir! evenin', Ma'am! See the man? Of course, Ma'am; but you'd best be keerful,"—standing between Jane and the door. "He's very poorly."
"What ails him?"
"Well, I'll say it out,—if you're his friends, as you say," stammering. "I'd not like to accuse any one rashly, but—I think he'd a notion of starvin' to death, an' got himself so low. Come to me las' week, an' pawned his coat for my back room to sleep in. He eat nothin' then: I seen that. An' he used to go out an' look at the dam for hours: but he never throwed himself in. Since he took to bed, we keep him up with broth and sech as we have,—Sally an' me. Sir? Afford it? Hum! We're not as well off as we have been," dryly; "but I'm not a beast to see a man starvin' under my roof. Oh, certingly, Ma'am; go up."
And while Jane mounted the rickety back-stairs, she turned to the door to meet two or three women with shawls pinned about their heads.
"He's very poorly, Mis' Crawford, thank ye, Mem. No, you can't do nothing'," in a sepulchral whisper, which continued in a lower tone, with a nod back to the Doctor and Andy.
Starke's affair was a godsend to the neighborhood, Dr. Bowdler saw. Untrained people enjoy a sickness with more keenness and hearty good-feeling than you do the opera. The Doctor had providently brought a flask of brandy in his pocket. He went on tiptoe up the creaking stairs and gave it to Jane. She was standing, holding the handle of the door, not turning it.
"What is it, Jane?" cheerfully. "What do you tremble for, eh?"