Aileen Aroon, A Memoir
Page 37
laughed.
"Well, little Fiddler," she replied, looking down at me with one eye, "Ishould say you were what we gentry call a mongrel."
"Is that something very nice?" I inquired. "Do I come of a highfamily, now?"
Bit-o'-Fun laughed now till the tears came into her eyes.
"Family!" she cried. "Yes, Fiddler, you have a deal of family in yourblood--all families, in fact. You are partly Skye and partly bulldog,and partly collie and partly pug."
"Oh, stop!" I cried; "you will make me too proud."
But Bit-o'-Fun went on--
"Your head, Fiddler, is decidedly Scotch; your legs are Irish--awfullyIrish; you are tulip-eared, ring-tailed, and your feather--"
"My feather!" I cried, looking round at my back. "You never mean tosay I have got feathers."
"Your hair, then, goosie; feather is the technical term. Your featheris flat, decidedly flat. And, in fact, you're a most wonderful specimenaltogether. That's your breed."
I never felt so proud in all my life before.
"And you're a great beauty, Bit-o'-Fun," I said; "but aren't your legsrather long for your body?"
"Oh, no!" replied Bit-o'-Fun; "there isn't a morsel too much daylightunder me."
"And wouldn't you like to have a nice long coat like mine?"
"Well, no," said Bit-o'-Fun--"that is, yes, you know; but it wouldn'tsuit so well in running, you see. Look at my head, how it is formed tocleave the wind. Look at my tail, again; that is what I steer with."
"Oh! you're perfection itself, I know," said I. "Pray how many prizeshave you taken?"
"Well," answered the greyhound, "I've had over fifty pound-pieces ofbeef-steak and from twenty to thirty half-pound."
"Do they give you beef-steak for prizes, then?" I asked.
"Oh dear no," replied she; "but it's like this: whenever I take a firstprize my master gives me a one-pound piece of steak; if it's only asecond prize I only get half a pound, and I always get a kiss besides."
"But supposing," I asked, "you took no prize?"
"A thing which never happened," said Bit-o'-Fun, rather proudly.
"But supposing?" I insisted.
"Oh, well," she answered, "instead of being kissed and _steaked_, Ishould be kicked and _Spratt-caked_, or sent to bed without my supper."
"And do you enjoy yourself at a show?" said I.
"Well, yes," said the greyhound; "all doggies don't, though, but I do.And master gives me such jolly food beforehand, and grooms me everymorning, and washes me--but that isn't nice, makes one shiver so--andthen I have always such a nice bed to lie upon. Then I'm sent to theshow town in a beautiful box, and men meet me at the station with acarriage. These men are sometimes very rough though, and talk angrily,and carry big whips, and smell horribly of bad beer and, worse, tobacco.One struck me once over the head. Now, if I had been doing anything Iwouldn't have minded; but I wasn't: only I served him out."
"What did you do?" said I.
"Why, just waited till I got a chance, then bit him through the leg. Mymaster just came up at the same moment, or it might have been a dearbite to me."
"And what is a dog-show like?" I asked.
"Oh!" said Bit-o'-Fun, "when you enter the show-hall, there you seehundreds and hundreds of doggies all chained up on benches. And thenoise they make, those that are new to it, is something awful. At firstI used to suffer dreadfully with headaches, but I'm used to it now. Butit is great fun to see and converse with so many pretty and intelligentdogs, I can tell you. It is this conversation that makes all the row,for perhaps you want to talk with a doggie quite at the other end of thehall, and so you have to roar until you are hoarse. What do we speakabout? Well, about our masters, and our points, and our food andexploits, and we abuse the judges, and wonder whether all the funnypeople we see have souls the same as we have, and so on. I have oftenthought what fun it would be if one of us were to break his chain somenight, and let all the other doggies loose. Oh, wouldn't we have a balljust!
"Well, we are taken out in batches to be judged, and are led round andround in a ring, while two or three ugly men, with hooks in their handsand ribbons in their buttonholes, shake their heads and examine us.That is the time I look my proudest. I cock my ears, straighten mytail, walk like a princess, and bow like a duchess, for I know that theeyes of all the world are on me, and, more than that, my master's eyes.And then when they hang the beautiful ticket around my neck, oh, ain't Iglad just! But still I can't help feeling for the poor doggies whodon't get any prize, they look so woe-begone and downhearted.
"But managers might do lots to make us more comfortable, by feeding usmore regularly, and giving us better food and more water. Oh, I'veoften had my tongue hanging out, and feeling like a bit of sand-paperfor want of a draught of pure water at a country show. And I've been atshows where they never gave us food, and no shelter from the scorchingsun or the thunder-shower. Again, they ought to lead us all outoccasionally, if only for five minutes, just to stretch our poor crampedlegs. But they don't, and it is very cruel. Sometimes, too, the peopletease us. I don't mind a pretty child patting me on the head, nor Idon't object to a sweet young lady bending over me and letting her longsilky curls fall over my shoulder; but there are gawky young men, whocome round and prod us with their sticks; and silly old ladies, whoprick us with their parasols, and say, `Get up, sir, and show yourself.'You've heard of my friend `Tell,' the champion Saint Bernard, I daresay. No? Oh, I forgot; of course you wouldn't. But, at any rate, oneday a fat, podgy lady, vulgarly bedecked in satin and gold, goes up toTell and points her splendid white parasol right at his chest. `Getup,' says she, `and show yourself.' Now Tell hasn't the best of tempersat any time. So he did get up, and quickly, too, and showed his teethand bit; and if his chain hadn't been as short as his temper it wouldhave been a sad thing for Mrs Podgy. As it was, he collared theparasol, and proceeded at once to turn it into toothpicks and rags, andwhat is more, too, he kept the pieces. So you see the life even of ashow-dog has its drawbacks."
"How exceedingly interesting!" said I; "wouldn't I like to be achampion! Do you think now, Bit-o'-Fun, I would have any chance?"
"Well, you see," said Bit-o'-Fun, smiling in her pleasant way, "thereisn't a class at present for Castle Hill collies."
"What?" said I. "I thought you said a while ago I was a high-bredmongrel?"
"Yes, yes," said Bit-o'-Fun; "mongrel, or Castle Hill collie; it's allthe same, you know."
"You're very learned, Bit-o'-Fun," I continued. "Now tell me this, whatdo they mean by judging by points?"
"Well, you see," replied Bit-o'-Fun, with a comical twinkle in her eye,"the judge goes round, and he says, `We'll give this dog ten points forhis head,' and sticks in ten pins; and so many for his tail, and sticksin so many pins in his tail, and his coat and legs, and so on, and doesthe same with the other dogs, and the dog who has most pins in him winsthe prize. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I replied; "you put it as plain as a book. But it is queer, andI wouldn't like the pins; I'm sure I should bite."
"Ha! ha! ha!" roared "Bill," the butcher's bull-and-terrier. I knew itwas he before I looked round, for he is a nasty vulgar thing, andsometimes he bites me. "Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed again. "Good-morning,Bit-o'-Fun. Whatever have you been telling that little fool of aFiddler?"
They always call me Fiddler, after my dear master.
"About the shows," said Bit-o'-Fun.
"Why, you never mean to tell me, Fiddler, that you think of going to ashow! Ha! ha! ha!"
"And suppose I did," I replied, a little riled, and I felt my hairbeginning to stand up all along my back, "I dare say I would have asmuch chance as an ugly patch-eyed thing like you."
"Look here, Fiddler," said Bill, showing all his teeth--and he has anawful lot of them--"talk a little more respectfully when you addressyour betters. I've a very good mind to--"
"To what, Master Bill?" said "Don Pedro," a beautiful largewhite-and-black Newfoundland, coming sudd
enly on the ground.
"No one is talking to you, Don," said Bill.
"But _I'm_ talking to you, Bill," said Don Pedro; "and if I hear you sayyou'll dare to touch poor little Fiddler, I'll carry you off and drownyou in the nearest pond,