said Jimmy; "elementary, but quite neat."
There was now a shutter to be negotiated. This took longer, but in the end Spike's persuasive methods prevailed.
Jimmy became quite cordial.
"You have been well-grounded, Spike," he said. "And, after all, that is half the battle. The advice I give to every novice is, 'Learn to walk before you try to run.' Master the a, b, c, of the craft first. With a little careful coaching, you will do. Just so. Pop in."
Spike climbed cautiously over the sill, followed by Jimmy. The latter struck a match, and found the electric light switch. They were in a parlor, furnished and decorated with surprising taste. Jimmy had expected the usual hideousness, but here everything from the wall-paper to the smallest ornaments was wonderfully well selected.
Business, however, was business. This was no time to stand admiring artistic effects in room-furnishing. There was that big J to be carved on the front door. If 'twere done, then 'twere well 'twere done quickly.
He was just moving to the door, when from some distant part of the house came the bark of a dog. Another joined in. The solo became a duet. The air was filled with their clamor.
"Gee!" cried Spike.
The remark seemed more or less to sum up the situation.
"'Tis sweet," says Byron, "to hear the watch-dog's honest bark." Jimmy and Spike found two watch-dogs' honest barks cloying. Spike intimated this by making a feverish dash for the open window. Unfortunately for the success of this maneuver, the floor of the room was covered not with a carpet but with tastefully scattered rugs, and underneath these rugs it was very highly polished. Spike, treading on one of these islands, was instantly undone. No power of will or muscle can save a man in such a case. Spike skidded. His feet flew from under him. There was a momentary flash of red head, as of a passing meteor. The next moment, he had fallen on his back with a thud that shook the house. Even in the crisis, the thought flashed across Jimmy's mind that this was not Spike's lucky night.
Upstairs, the efforts of the canine choir had begun to resemble the "A ché la morte" duet in "Il Trovatore." Particularly good work was being done by the baritone dog.
Spike sat up, groaning. Equipped though he was by nature with a skull of the purest and most solid ivory, the fall had disconcerted him. His eyes, like those of Shakespeare's poet, rolling in a fine frenzy, did glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. He passed his fingers tenderly through his vermilion hair.
Heavy footsteps were descending the stairs. In the distance, the soprano dog had reached A in alt., and was holding it, while his fellow artiste executed runs in the lower register.
"Get up!" hissed Jimmy. "There's somebody coming! Get up, you idiot, can't you!"
It was characteristic of Jimmy that it never even occurred to him to desert the fallen one, and depart alone. Spike was his brother-in-arms. He would as soon have thought of deserting him as a sea-captain would of abandoning the ship.
Consequently, as Spike, despite all exhortations, continued to remain on the floor, rubbing his head and uttering "Gee!" at intervals in a melancholy voice, Jimmy resigned himself to fate, and stood where he was, waiting for the door to open.
It opened the next moment as if a cyclone had been behind it.
CHAPTER VII
GETTING ACQUAINTED
A CYCLONE, entering a room, is apt to alter the position of things. This cyclone shifted a foot-stool, a small chair, a rug, and Spike. The chair, struck by a massive boot, whirled against the wall. The foot-stool rolled away. The rug crumpled up and slid. Spike, with a yell, leaped to his feet, slipped again, fell, and finally compromised on an all-fours position, in which attitude he remained, blinking.
While these stirring acts were in progress, there was the sound of a door opening upstairs, followed by a scuttering of feet and an appalling increase in the canine contribution to the current noises. The duet had now taken on quite a Wagnerian effect.
There raced into the room first a white bull-terrier, he of the soprano voice, and—a bad second—his fellow artiste, the baritone, a massive bull-dog, bearing a striking resemblance to the big man with the big lower jaw whose entrance had started the cyclone.
And, then, in theatrical parlance, the entire company "held the picture." Up-stage, with his hand still on the door, stood the man with the jaw; down-stage, Jimmy; center, Spike and the bull-dog, their noses a couple of inches apart, inspected each other with mutual disfavor. On the extreme O. P. side, the bull-terrier, who had fallen foul of a wicker-work table, was crouching with extended tongue and rolling eyes, waiting for the next move.
The householder looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at the householder. Spike and the bull-dog looked at each other. The bull-terrier distributed his gaze impartially around the company.
"A typical scene of quiet American home-life," murmured Jimmy.
The householder glowered.
"Hands up, you devils!" he roared, pointing a mammoth revolver.
The two marauders humored his whim.
"Let me explain," said Jimmy pacifically, shuffling warily around in order to face the bull-terrier, who was now strolling in his direction with an ill-assumed carelessness.
"Keep still, you blackguard!" Jimmy kept still. The bull-terrier, with the same abstracted air, was beginning a casual inspection of his right trouser-leg.
Relations between Spike and the bull-dog, meanwhile, had become more strained. The sudden flinging up of the former's arms had had the worst effects on the animal's nerves. Spike, the croucher on all-fours, he might have tolerated; but Spike, the semaphore, inspired him with thoughts of battle. He was growling in a moody, reflective manner. His eye was full of purpose.
It was probably this that caused Spike to look at the householder. Till then, he had been too busy to shift his gaze, but now the bull-dog's eye had become so unpleasing that he cast a pathetic glance up at the man by the door.
"Gee!" he cried. "It's de boss. Say, boss, call off de dawg; It's sure goin' to nip de hull head off'n me."
The other lowered the revolver in surprise.
"So, it's you, you limb of Satan!" he remarked. "I thought I had seen that damned red head of yours before. What are you doing in my house?"
Spike uttered a howl in which indignation and self-pity were nicely blended.
"I'll lay for that Swede!" he cried. "I'll soak it to him good! Boss, I've had a raw deal. On de level, I has. Dey's a feller I know, a fat Swede—Ole Larsen his monaker is—an' dis feller an' me started in scrapping last week, an' I puts it all over him, so he had it in for me. But he comes up to me, like as if he's meanin' to be good, an' he says he's got a soft proposition fer me if I'll give him half. So, I says all right, where is it? An' he gives me de number of dis house, an' says dis is where a widder-lady
