|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 23
These unfortunate dry nurses of dogdom, the cur cuddlers, mongrel
managers, Spitz stalkers, poodle pullers, Skye scrapers, dachshund
dandlers, terrier trailers and Pomeranian pushers of the cliff-dwelling
Circes follow their charges meekly. The doggies neither fear nor respect
them. Masters of the house these men whom they hold in leash may be, but
they are not masters of them. From cosey corner to fire escape, from
divan to dumbwaiter, doggy's snarl easily drives this two-legged being who
is commissioned to walk at the other end of his string during his outing.
One twilight the dogmen came forth as usual at their Circes' pleading,
guerdon, or crack of the whip. One among them was a strong man,
apparently of too solid virtues for this airy vocation. His expression
was melancholic, his manner depressed. He was leashed to a vile white
dog, loathsomely fat, fiendishly ill-natured, gloatingly intractable
toward his despised conductor.
At a corner nearest to his apartment house the dogman turned down a side
street, hoping for fewer witnesses to his ignominy. The surfeited beast
waddled before him, panting with spleen and the labour of motion.
Suddenly the dog stopped. A tall, brown, long-coated, wide-brimmed man
stood like a Colossus blocking the sidewalk and declaring:
"Well, I'm a son of a gun!"
"Jim Berry!" breathed the dogman, with exclamation points in his voice.
"Sam Telfair," cried Wide-Brim again, "you ding-basted old willy-walloo,
give us your hoof!"
Their hands clasped in the brief, tight greeting of the West that is death
to the hand-shake microbe.
"You old fat rascal!" continued Wide-Brim, with a wrinkled brown smile;
"it's been five years since I seen you. I been in this town a week, but
you can't find nobody in such a place. Well, you dinged old married man,
how are they coming?"
Something mushy and heavily soft like raised dough leaned against Jim's
leg and chewed his trousers with a yeasty growl.
"Get to work," said Jim, "and explain this yard-wide hydrophobia yearling
you've throwed your lasso over. Are you the pound-master of this burg?
Do you call that a dog or what?"
"I need a drink," said the dogman, dejected at the reminder of his old dog
of the sea. "Come on."
Hard by was a cafe. 'Tis ever so in the big city.
They sat at a table, and the bloated monster yelped and scrambled at the
end of his leash to get at the cafe cat.
"Whiskey," said Jim to the waiter.
"Make it two," said the dogman.
"You're fatter," said Jim, "and you look subjugated. I don't know about
the East agreeing with you. All the boys asked me to hunt you up when I
started, Sandy King, he went to the Klondike. Watson Burrel, he married
the oldest Peters girl. I made some money buying beeves, and I bought a
lot of wild land up on the Little Powder. Going to fence next fall. Bill
Rawlins, he's gone to farming. You remember Bill, of course -- he was
courting Marcella -- excuse me, Sam -- I mean the lady you married, while
she was teaching school at Prairie View. But you was the lucky man. How
is Missis Telfair?"
"S-h-h-h!" said the dogman, signalling the waiter; "give it a name."
"Whiskey," said Jim.
"Make it two," said the dogman.
"She's well," he continued, after his chaser. "She refused to live
anywhere but in New York, where she came from. We live in a flat. Every
evening at six I take that dog out for a walk. It's Marcella's pet.
There never were two animals on earth, Jim, that hated one another like me
and that dog does. His name's Lovekins. Marcella dresses for dinner
while we're out. We eat tabble dote. Ever try one of them, Jim?"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|