Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “Chappie!” he said; “Chappie!”

  “Well?”

  “There are rats,” he whispered hoarsely; “there are rats in the study.”

  “Did you go in?” I asked.

  “No, you know we’re forbidden to go in, but I smelt them quite plainly. I can’t smell them at all here,” he said regretfully. “What a nose you have got, after all, Chappie!”

  “What are you going to do, Kerry?” I asked.

  “Why, nothing,” he said; “we mustn’t go in the study.”

  “Oh,” I said, “rules weren’t made for great occasions like this; it’s your business to kill rats wherever they are.”

  And that misguided wire-haired person went up. He got them out of the cage, and killed them.

  The next morning, when the master came down, he thrashed Kerry within an inch of his life. He knows I don’t touch rats; and, besides, I was so unwell that nobody could have suspected me. And I explained to Kerry that, good as my nose is, I couldn’t possibly tell by the smell that the rats were white, and, therefore, sacred. It was not worth while to mention that I had seen them before.

  Kerry looks up to me now as a dog with a nose, and I am much happier than formerly. But Kerry is not nearly so keen on rats now. I thought somehow he wouldn’t be.

  The Tables Turned

  WE knew it was a dog, directly the basket was set down in the hall. We heard it moving about inside. We sniffed all round. We asked it why it didn’t come out (the basket was tightly tied up with string). “Are you having a good time in there?” said Roy. “Can’t you show your face?” said I. “He’s ashamed of it,” said Roy, waving his long bushy tail. Then he growled a little, and the dog inside growled too; and then, as Roy had an appointment with the butcher at his own back door, I went out to see him home.

  “I am so sorry I am going away for Christmas with my master,” he said when we parted; “but you must introduce that new dog to me when I come home. We mustn’t stand any of his impudence, eh?”

  I was sorry Roy was going away, for Roy is my great friend. He always fights the battles for both of us. I daresay I might have got into the way of fighting my own battles, but I never like to interfere with anybody’s pleasure, and Roy’s chief pleasure is fighting. As for me, I think the delights of that recreation are over-estimated.

  When my master came home, he opened the basket, and a dog of Irish family tumbled out, growling and snarling, and hid himself under the sofa. They wasted more biscuits on him than I have ever seen wasted on any deserving dog; and at last they got him out, and he consented to eat some supper. They gave him a much better basket than mine, and we went to bed.

  Next morning, the Irish terrier got out of his basket, stretched himself, yawned, and insisted on thrashing me before breakfast.

  “But I am a dog of peace,” I said; “I don’t fight.”

  “But I do, you see,” he answered, “that’s just the difference.”

  I tried to defend myself, but he got hold of one of my feet, and held it up. I sat up, and howled with pain and indignation.

  “Have you had enough?” he said, and, without waiting for my answer, proceeded to give me more.

  “But I don’t fight,” I said; “I don’t approve of fighting.”

  “Then I’ll teach you to have better manners than to say so,” said he, and he taught me for nearly five minutes.

  “Now then,” he said, “are you licked?”

  “Yes,” I answered; for indeed I was.

  “Are you sorry you ever tried to fight with me?”

  “Yes,” still seemed to be the only thing to say.

  “And do you approve of fighting?”

  He seemed to wish me to say “yes,” and so I said it.

  “Very well, then,” he said; “now we’ll be friends, if you like. Come along; you have given me an appetite for breakfast.”

  “Any society worth cultivating about here?” he asked, after the meal, in his overbearing way.

  “I have a very great friend who lives next door,” I said; “but I don’t know whether I should care to introduce you to him.”

  He showed his teeth, and asked what I meant.

  “You see, you might not like him; and, if you didn’t like him —— but he’s a most agreeable dog.”

  “A good fighter?” asked Rustler.

  I scratched my ear with my hind foot, and pretended to think.

  “Oh, I see he’s not,” said Rustler contemptuously; “well, you shall introduce him to me directly he comes back.”

  Rustler’s overbearing and disagreeable manners so upset me that I was quite thin when, at the end of the week, Roy came home. I told him my troubles at once.

  “Bring your Rustler along,” he said grandly, “and introduce him to me.”

  So I did. Rustler came along with his ears up, and his miserable tail in the air. Roy lay by his kennel looking the image of serenity and peacefulness. To judge by his expression, he might not have had a tooth in his head.

  Rustler stood with his feet as far apart as he could get them, and put his head on one side.

  “I have heard so much about you, Mr. What’s-your-name,” he said, “that I have come to make a closer acquaintance.”

  “Delighted, I’m sure,” said Roy, who has splendid manners.

  “If you will get on your legs,” said Rustler rudely, “I will tell you what I think of you.”

  Roy got on his legs, still looking very humble, and the next minute he had Rustler by the front foot, and was making him sit down and scream just as Rustler had made me. It was a magnificent fight.

  “Have you had enough?” said Roy, and then gave him more without waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t want to fight any more,” said Rustler at last; “I am sorry I spoke.”

  “It was a magnificent fight.”

  “Then I’ll teach you to have more pluck than to own it,” said Roy.

  When he had taught him for some time, he said, “Are you licked?”

  “Yes,” said Rustler, glaring at me out his uninjured eye.

  “Are you sorry you tried to fight with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you promise to leave my little friend here alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Then Roy let him go. We shook tails all round, and Rustler and I went home.

  “Poor Rustler,” I said, “I know exactly how you feel.”

  “You little humbug,” he said, with half a laugh — for he is not an ill — natured fellow when you come to know him—”you managed it very cleverly! and I’m not one to bear malice; but, I say, your friend is A1.”

  We are now the most united trio, and Roy and Rustler have licked all the other dogs in the neighbourhood.

  A Noble Dog

  ROVER would go into the water fast enough for a bathe or a swim, but he would not bring anything out. The children used to throw in sticks, and Rover and I used to bound in together; but I would bring the stick back, while he swam round and round, enjoying himself.

  I am not vain, but I could not help feeling how much superior I was to such a dog as Rover. He is a prize Newfoundland, and I am only a humble retriever of obscure family.

  So one day I said to him —

  “Why don’t you fetch the sticks out when the children throw them in?”

  “I don’t care about sticks,” he said.

  “But it’s so grand and clever to be able to fetch them out.”

  “Is it?” he answered.

  “I know it is, for the children tell me so.

  “Do they?” he said.

  “I wonder you are not ashamed,” I went on, a little nettled by his meekness, “never to do anything useful. I should be, if I were you.”

  “Ah,” he said, “but you see you are not. Good night.”

  “He pulled her out some ten yards down the stream.”

  We used to spend a great deal of time by the river. The children loved to play there, and we dogs were always expected to go with t
hem.

  One day, as I was lying asleep on the warm grass by the river bank, I heard a splash. I jumped in, but there was no stick, only one of the children floating down on the stream, and screaming whenever her head came from under the water.

  I thought it was a new kind of game, not very interesting, so I swam out again; and just as I was shaking the water out of my ears, I heard another great flop, and there was Rover in the water, holding on to the child’s dress. He pulled her out some ten yards down the stream; and oh! if you could have seen the fuss that the master and mistress and the rest of the children made of that black and white spotted person!

  “Why, Rover,” I said afterwards, when we had got home and were talking it over, “whatever made you think that the child wanted to be pulled out of the water?”

  “It’s my business to pull people out of the water,” he said.

  “But,” I urged, “I always thought you were too stupid to understand things.”

  “Did you?” he said, turning his mild eyes on me.

  “Why didn’t you explain to me that you — —”

  “My dear dog,” he said, “I never think it worth while to fetch sticks out of the water, and I never think it worth while to explain things to stupid people.”

  The Dyer’s Dog

  SHE was beautiful, with a strange unearthly beauty. She had a little black nose. Her eyes were small, but bright and full of charm. Her ears were long and soft, and her tail curled like one of the ostrich plumes in the window of the dyer with whom she lived.

  I have met many little dogs with noses as charming, and eyes as bright, and tails as curly; but never one who, like my Bessie, was a rich, deep pink all over.

  I lived with a baker then. I was sitting on his doorstep when she first delighted my eyes. I ran across the road to give her good morning. She seemed pleased to see me. We had a little chat about the weather and the other dogs in the street, and about buns, and rats, and the vices of the domestic cat.

  Her manners and her conversation were as bright and charming as her eyes. Before we parted, we had made an appointment for the next afternoon, and as I said good-bye, I ventured to ask —

  “How is it, lady, that you are of such a surpassingly beautiful colour?”

  “It is natural to our family,” she said, tossing her pretty ears. “My mother was the Royal Crimson Dog at the Court of the King of India.”

  I bowed with deep respect and withdrew, for I heard them calling me at home.

  The next day I looked for my beautiful pink-coloured lady, but I looked in vain. Instead, a dog of a bright sky-blue, with a yellow ribbon round its neck, sat in the sun on the dyer’s doorstep. Yet, could I be mistaken? That nose, those ears, that feathery tail, those bright and beaming eyes!

  I went across. She received me with some embarrassment, which disappeared as I talked gaily of milk and guinea pigs, and the habits of the cats’-meat man. Before we parted I said —

  “You have changed your dress.”

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s so common and vulgar to wear always one colour.”

  “Sat in the sun on the dyer’s doorstep.”

  “But I thought” — I hesitated—”that your mother was the Royal Crimson Dog at the Court of — —”

  “So she was,” replied the lady promptly, “but my father was the well-known sky-blue terrier at the Crystal Palace Dog Show. I resemble both my parents.”

  I retired, fascinated by her high breeding and graceful explanations. Through my dreams that night wandered a long procession of blue and crimson dogs.

  The next day, when I hurried to keep the appointment she had been good enough to make with me, I found her a deep purple. Again I concealed my surprise, while we talked of subjects of common interest, of dog — collars and chains and kennels, of biscuits, bones, and the outrage of the muzzling order; and at last I said —

  “You have changed your dress again. Your mother was the Royal — —”

  “Oh, don’t,” she said, “it’s so tiresome to keep repeating things. My father was red and my mother was blue, and I myself, as you see, am purple. Don’t you know that crimson and blue make purple? Any child with a shilling box of paints could have told you that.”

  I thanked her, and came away. Purple seemed to me the most beautiful colour in the world.

  But the next day she was green — as green as grass. After the customary exchange of civilities, I remarked firmly —

  “Blue and crimson may make purple, but — —”

  “But green is my favourite colour,” she said briskly. “I suppose a dog is not to be bound down by the prejudices of its parents?”

  I went away very sadly, and, as I went, I noticed that there were some curtains in the dyer’s window of exactly the same tint as my friend’s dress. The next day she was gone.

  I sought her in vain. The day after, a French poodle appeared on the dyer’s doorstep, dressed in stripes of orange and scarlet. I went boldly across to him.

  “Good morning, old man; how do you come to be that colour?” I said.

  “They dye me so,” he answered gloomily. “It’s a dreadful lot for a dog that respects himself.”

  I never saw Bessie but once again. She seemed then to be living with a tinsmith, and her colour was a gingery white.

  I hope I am too much of a gentleman to taunt any lady in misfortune, but I couldn’t help saying —

  “Why don’t you wear any of your beautiful coloured dresses now?”

  She answered me curtly, for she saw that she had ceased to charm.

  “I gave up wearing my pretty dresses,” she said, “because silly people asked me so many questions about them.”

  As usual, I accepted her explanations in silence; but, when I see the poodle opposite, in his varying glories of blue, and green, and orange, and purple, I can’t help thinking that perhaps my fair Bessie did not always speak the truth.

  The Vain Setter

  OURS is one of the most ancient and noble families in the land, and I contend that family pride is an exalted sentiment. I still hold to this belief, in spite of all the sufferings that it has brought upon me.

  My father, whose ancestor came over with the Conqueror, has taken prizes at many a county show; and my mother, the handsomest of her sex, took one prize, and would have taken more, but for the unfortunate accident of having her tail cut off in a door.

  I early determined to be worthy of my high breeding and undoubted descent. A setter should have long, silky ears. I made my brother pull mine gently for an hour at a time. In order to lengthen them, I combed their fringes with my paws.

  My father’s brow is lofty and narrow. The unfortunate accident which removed my mother from public life, suggested to me a way of cultivating our most famous family characteristic. I used to place my head between the doorpost and the door, while my brother leaned gently against the latter, so as to press my skull to the requisite shape. My legs, I knew, ought to be straight. I never indulged in any of those field-sports, to which my brother early turned a light-hearted attention; for I knew that undue exercise tends to curve the legs.

  My tail was my special care. Regardless of comfort, I twisted myself into the shape of a capital O, and, holding the end of my tail gently, but firmly, in my teeth, I stretched myself and it.

  So much pains devoted to such a noble object could not be thrown away. I became the handsomest setter in the three counties.

  My brother, in the meantime, grew expert in the coarse sporting exercises to which he devoted his energies. He had no pride. He tramped the mud of the fields; he tore his ears in bramble bushes; and I have seen him so far lose all sense of our family’s dignity as to grovel at the feet of his master, and raise one of his paws, to indicate that birds were near — common birds; I believe they are called partridges.

  “You might as well,” I said to him bitterly—”you might as well have been born a pointer.”

  “Why not?” he said. “I know a pointer,” he went on, laughing in his merr
y, careless way—”I know a pointer who lives at the Pines Farm. A capital fellow he is.”

  “My dear boy,” I said, “just come and squeeze my head in the door a little, will you? and let me tell you that for one of our family to associate with a pointer is social ruin — common, coarse, smooth-coated persons, related, I should suppose, to the vulgar plum-pudding dog.”

  My brother only laughed; but he was a good-natured fellow, and pinched my head in the door until my forehead could stand the strain no longer.

  “I took the first prize.”

  I was sent to the Crystal Palace Dog Show; and, as I looked round on the hundreds of dogs of all families and nationalities, I breathed a sigh of contentment, and blessed the fate that had made me, in this England of ours, a well-born English setter. My brother was not at the Show, of course; but I think even he would have admired me if he could have seen how far superior I was to all about me. Of course, I took the first prize. My mission was fulfilled: my family pride was satisfied. The judges unanimously pronounced me to be the most perfect and beautiful sporting dog in the whole Show. My master, wild with delight, patted my silky forehead, and then turned aside to talk with a stout gentleman in gaiters.

  I thought of what my life would be — one long, joyous round of shows, applause, pats on the head from a grateful master, delicious food and first prizes.

  But my master’s base nature — his ancestors came over with George and the Hanoverians — struck all my hopes to the ground. I woke from my dream of triumph to find myself sold to the stout man in gaiters.

  I never saw my brother again. I was never able to tell my fond and doting mother that I, like her, had taken a prize. I was never able to chat with my father over a bone, comparing with him experiences of the show bench. The stout, gaitered man took me away into a far country.

  The next morning he took me out into the fields, and looked at me from time to time, as if he expected me to do something. Unwilling to disappoint him, I sat down and began my usual exercise for lengthening my tail. He at once struck me violently. We went a little farther, and I noticed that he looked more and more displeased; but I could not imagine what it could be that so distressed him. Presently one of those common partridge birds had the impertinence to fly out close to me. I caught it at once, and looked round for applause. There only came another shower of blows.