increased.
“Months passed uneventfully by, and then another burglar sampled our house. This time there could be no doubt that the dog was doing something for his living. The din in the basement was terrific. The house shook with the concussion of falling bodies.
“My father snatched up his revolver and rushed downstairs, and I followed him. The kitchen was in confusion. Tables and chairs were overturned, and on the floor lay a man gurgling for help. The dog was standing over him, choking him.
“The pater held his revolver to the man’s ear, while I, by superhuman effort, dragged our preserver away, and chained him up to the sink, after which I lit the gas.
“Then we perceived that the gentleman on the floor was a police constable.
“ ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed my father, dropping the revolver, ‘however did you come here?’
“ ‘’Ow did I come ’ere?’ retorted the man, sitting up and speaking in a tone of bitter, but not unnatural, indignation. ‘Why, in the course of my dooty, that’s ’ow I come ’ere. I see a burglar getting in through the window, so I just follows and slips in after ’im.’
“ ‘Did you catch him?’ asked my father.
“ ‘Did I catch ’im!’ almost shrieked the man. ‘’Ow could I catch ’im with that blasted dog of yours ’olding me down by the throat, while ’e lights ’is pipe and walks out by the back door?’
“The dog was for sale the next day. The mater, who had grown to like him, because he let the baby pull his tail, wanted us to keep him. The mistake, she said, was not the animal’s fault. Two men broke into the house almost at the same time. The dog could not go for both of them. He did his best, and went for one. That his selection should have fallen upon the policeman instead of upon the burglar was unfortunate. But still it was a thing that might have happened to any dog.
“My father, however, had become prejudiced against the poor creature, and that same week he inserted an advertisement in The Field, in which the animal was recommended as an investment likely to prove useful to any enterprising member of the criminal classes.”
MacShaughnassy having had his innings, Jephson took a turn, and told us a pathetic story about an unfortunate mongrel that was run over in the Strand one day and its leg broken. A medical student, who was passing at the time, picked it up and carried it to the Charing Cross Hospital, where its leg was set, and where it was kept and tended until it was quite itself again, when it was sent home.
The poor thing had quite understood what was being done for it, and had been the most grateful patient they had ever had in the hospital. The whole staff were quite sorry when it left.
One morning, a week or two later, the house-surgeon, looking out of the window, saw the dog coming down the street. When it came near he noticed that it had a penny in its mouth. A cat’s-meat barrow was standing by the kerb, and for a moment, as he passed it, the dog hesitated.
But his nobler nature asserted itself, and, walking straight up to the hospital railings, and raising himself upon his hind legs, he dropped his penny into the contribution box.
MacShaughnassy was much affected by this story. He said it showed such a beautiful trait in the dog’s character. The animal was a poor outcast, vagrant thing, that had perhaps never possessed a penny before in all its life, and might never have another. He said that dog’s penny seemed to him to be a greater gift than the biggest cheque that the wealthiest patron ever signed.
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