All night long they talked and sang, and passed greetings with old pals, and the homesick puppies howled dismal. Them that couldn’t sleep wouldn’t let no others sleep, and all the electric lights burned in the roof, and in my eyes. I could hear Jimmy Jocks snoring peaceful, but I could only doze by jerks, and when I dozed I dreamed horrible. All the dogs in the hall seemed coming at me for daring to intrude, with their jaws red and open, and their eyes blazing like the lights in the roof. “You’re a street dog! Get out, you street dog!” they yells. And as they drives me out, the pipe clay drops off me, and they laugh and shriek; and when I looks down I see that I have turned into a black-and-tan.
They was most awful dreams, and next morning, when Miss Dorothy comes and gives me water in a pan, I begs and begs her to take me home; but she can’t understand. “How well Kid is!” she says. And when I jumps into the Master’s arms and pulls to break my chain, he says, “If he knew all as he had against him, miss, he wouldn’t be so gay.” And from a book they reads out the names of the beautiful high-bred terriers which I have got to meet. And I can’t make ’em understand that I only want to run away and hide myself where no one will see me.
Then suddenly men comes hurrying down our street and begins to brush the beautiful bull-terriers; and the Master rubs me with a towel so excited that his hands trembles awful, and Miss Dorothy tweaks my ears between her gloves, so that the blood runs to ’em, and they turn pink and stand up straight and sharp.
“Now, then, Nolan,” says she, her voice shaking just like his fingers, “keep his head up–and never let the judge lose sight of him.” When I hears that my legs breaks under me, for I knows all about judges. Twice the old Master goes up before the judge for fighting me with other dogs, and the judge promises him if he ever does it again he’ll chain him up in jail. I knew he’d find me out. A judge can’t be fooled by no pipe-clay. He can see right through you, and he reads your insides.
The judging-ring, which is where the judge holds out, was so like a fighting-pit that when I come in it, and find six other dogs there, I springs into position, so that when they lets us go I can defend myself. But the Master smooths down my hair and whispers, “Hold ’ard, Kid, hold ’ard. This ain’t a fight,” says he. “Look your prettiest,” he whispers. “Please, Kid, look your prettiest”; and he pulls my leash so tight that I can’t touch my pats to the sawdust, and my nose goes up in the air. There was millions of people a-watching us from the railings, and three of our kennel-men, too, making fun of the Master and me, and Miss Dorothy with her chin just reaching to the rail, and her eyes so big that I thought she was a-going to cry. It was awful to think that when the judge stood up and exposed me, all those people, and Miss Dorothy, would be there to see me driven from the Show.
The judge he was a fierce-looking man with specs on his nose, and a red beard. When I first come in he didn’t see me, owing to my being too quick for him and dodging behind the Master. But when the Master drags me round and I pulls at the sawdust to keep back, the judge looks at us careless-like, and then stops and glares through his specs, and I knew it was all up with me.
“Are there any more?” asks the judge to the gentleman at the gate, but never taking his specs from me.
The man at the gate looks in his book. “Seven in the novice class,” says he. “They’re all here. You can go ahead,” and he shuts the gate.
The judge he doesn’t hesitate a moment. He just waves his hand toward the corner of the ring. “Take him away,” he says to the Master, “over there, and keep him away”; and he turns and looks most solemn at the six beautiful bull-terriers. I don’t know how I crawled to that corner. I wanted to scratch under the sawdust and dig myself a grave. The kennel-men they slapped the rail with their hands and laughed at the Master like they would fall over. They pointed at me in the corner, and their sides just shaked. But little Miss Dorothy she presses her lips tight against the rail, and I see tears rolling from her eyes. The Master he hangs his head like he had been whipped. I felt most sorry for him than all. He was so red, and he was letting on not to see the kennel-men, and blinking his eyes. If the judge had ordered me right out it wouldn’t have disgraced us so, but it was keeping me there while he was judging the high-bred dogs that hurt so hard. With all those people staring, too. And his doing it so quick, without no doubt nor questions. You can’t fool the judges. They see inside you.
But he couldn’t make up his mind about them high-bred dogs. He scowls at ’em, and he glares at ’em, first with his head on the one side and then on the other. And he feels of ’em, and orders ’em to run about. And Nolan leans against the rails, with his head hung down, and pats me. And Miss Dorothy comes over beside him, but don’t say nothing, only wipes her eye with her finger. A man on the other side of the rail he says to the Master, “The judge don’t like your dog?”
“No,” says the Master.
“Have you ever shown him before?” says the man.
“No,” says the Master, “and I’ll never show him again. He’s my dog,” says the Master, “and he suits me! And I don’t care what no judges think.” And when he says them kind words, I licks his hand most grateful.
The judge had two of the six dogs on a little platform in the middle of the ring, and he had chased the four other dogs into the corners, where they was licking their chops, and letting on they didn’t care, same as Nolan was.
The two dogs on the platform was so beautiful that the judge hisself couldn’t tell which was the best of ’em, even when he stoops down and holds their heads together. But at last he gives a sigh, and brushes the sawdust off his knees, and goes to the table in the ring, where there was a man keeping score, and heaps and heaps of blue and gold and red and yellow ribbons. And the judge picks up a bunch of ’em and walks to the two gentlemen who was holding the beautiful dogs, and he says to each, “What’s his number?” and he hands each gentleman a ribbon. And then he turned sharp and comes straight at the Master.
“What’s his number?” says the judge. And Master was so scared that he couldn’t make no answer.
But Miss Dorothy claps her hands and cries out like she was laughing, “Three twenty-six,” and the judge writes it down and shoves Master the blue ribbon.
I bit the Master, and I jumps and bit Miss Dorothy, and I waggled so hard that the Master couldn’t hold me. When I get to the gate Miss Dorothy snatches me up and kisses me between the ears, right before millions of people, and they both hold me so tight that I didn’t know which of them was carrying of me. But one thing I knew, for I listened hard, as it was the judge hisself as said it.
“Did you see that puppy I gave first to?” says the judge to the gentleman at the gate.
“I did. He was a bit out of his class,” says the gate gentleman.
“He certainly was!” says the judge, and they both laughed.
But I didn’t care. They couldn’t hurt me then, not with Nolan holding the blue ribbon and Miss Dorothy hugging my ears, and the kennel-men sneaking away, each looking like he’d been caught with his nose under the lid of the slop-can.
We sat down together, and we all three just talked as fast as we could. They was so pleased that I couldn’t help feeling proud myself, and I barked and leaped about so gay that all the bull-terriers in our street stretched on their chains and howled at me.
“Just look at him!” says one of those I had beat. “What’s he giving hisself airs about?”
“Because he’s got one blue ribbon!” says another of ’em. “Why, when I was a puppy I used to eat ’em, and if that judge could ever learn to know a toy from a mastiff, I’d have had this one.”
But Jimmy Jocks he leaned over from his bench and says, “Well done, Kid. Didn’t I tell you so?” What he ’ad told me was that I might get a “commended,” but I didn’t remind him.
“Didn’t I tell you,” says Jimmy Jocks, “that I saw your grandfather make his début at the Crystal–”
“Yes, sir, you did, sir,” says I, for I have no love for the men of my family.
A gentleman with a showing-leash around his neck comes up just then and looks at me very critical. “Nice dog you’ve got, Miss Wyndham,” says he; “would you care to sell him?”
“He’s not my dog,” says Miss Dorothy, holding me tight. “I wish he were.”
“He’s not for sale, sir,” says the Master, and I wasthatglad.
“Oh, he’s yours, is he?” says the gentleman, looking hard at Nolan. “Well, I’ll give you a hundred dollars for him,” says he, careless-like.
“Thank you, sir; he’s not for sale,” says Nolan, but his eyes get very big. The gentleman he walked away; but I watches him, and he talks to a man in a golf-cap, and by and by the man comes along our street, looking at all the dogs, and stops in front of me.
“This your dog?” says he to Nolan. “Pity he’s so leggy,” says he. “If he had a good tail, and a longer stop, and his ears were set higher, he’d be a good dog. As he is, I’ll give you fifty dollars for him.”
But before the Master could speak, Miss Dorothy laughs and says: “You’re Mr. Polk’s kennel-man, I believe. Well, you tell Mr. Polk from me that the dog’s not for sale now any more than he was five minutes ago, and that when he is, he’ll have to bid against me for him.”
The man looks foolish at that, but he turns to Nolan quick-like. “I’ll give you three hundred for him,” he says.
“Oh, indeed!” whispers Miss Dorothy, like she was talking to herself. “That’s it, is it?” And she turns and looks at me just as though she had never seen me before. Nolan he was a-gaping, too, with his mouth open. But he holds me tight.
“He’s not for sale,” he growls, like he was frightened; and the man looks black and walks away.
“Why, Nolan!” cries Miss Dorothy, “Mr. Polk knows more about bull-terriers than any amateur in America. What can he mean? Why, Kid is no more than a puppy! Three hundred dollars for a puppy!”
“And he ain’t no thoroughbred, neither!” cries the Master. “He’s ‘Unknown,’ ain’t he? Kid can’t help it, of course, but his mother, miss–”
I dropped my head. I couldn’t bear he should tell Miss Dorothy. I couldn’t bear she should know I had stolen my blue ribbon.
But the Master never told, for at that a gentleman runs up, calling, “Three twenty-six, three twenty-six!” And Miss Dorothy says, “Here he is; what is it?”
“The Winners’ class,” says the gentleman. “Hurry, please; the judge is waiting for him.”
Nolan tries to get me off the chain on to a showing-leash, but he shakes so, he only chokes me. “What is it, miss?” he says. “What is it?”
“The Winners’ class,” says Miss Dorothy. “The judge wants him with the winners of the other classes–to decide which is the best. It’s only a form,” says she. “He has the champions against him now.”
“Yes,” says the gentleman, as he hurries us to the ring. “I’m afraid it’s only a form for your dog, but the judge wants all the winners, puppy class even.”
We had got to the gate, and the gentleman there was writing down my number.
“Who won the open?” asks Miss Dorothy.
“Oh, who would?” laughs the gentleman. “The old champion, of course. He’s won for three years now. There he is. Isn’t he wonderful?” says he; and he points to a dog that’s standing proud and haughty on the platform in the middle of the ring.
I never see so beautiful a dog–so fine and clean and noble, so white like he had rolled hisself in flour, holding his nose up and his eyes shut, same as though no one was worth looking at. Aside of him we other dogs, even though we had a blue ribbon apiece, seemed like lumps of mud. He was a royal gentleman, a king, he was. His master didn’t have to hold his head with no leash. He held it hisself, standing as still as an iron dog on a lawn, like he knew all the people was looking at him. And so they was, and no one around the ring pointed at no other dog but him.
“Oh, what a picture!” cried Miss Dorothy. “He’s like a marble figure by a great artist–one who loved dogs. Who is he?” says she, looking in her book. “I don’t keep up with terriers.”
“Oh, you know him,” says the gentleman. “He is the champion of champions, Regent Royal.”
The Master’s face went red.
“And this is Regent Royal’s son,” cries he, and he pulls me quick into the ring, and plants me on the platform next my father.
I trembled so that I near fell. My legs twisted like a leash. But my father he never looked at me. He only smiled the same sleepy smile, and he still kept his eyes half shut, like as no one, no, not even his own son, was worth his lookin’ at.
The judge he didn’t let me stay beside my father, but, one by one, he placed the other dogs next to him and measured and felt and pulled at them. And each one he put down, but he never put my father down. And then he comes over and picks up me and sets me back on the platform, shoulder to shoulder with the Champion Regent Royal, and goes down on his knees, and looks into our eyes.
The gentleman with my father he laughs, and says to the judge, “Thinking of keeping us here all day, John?” But the judge he doesn’t hear him, and goes behind us and runs his hand down my side, and holds back my ears, and takes my jaws between his fingers. The crowd around the ring is very deep now, and nobody says nothing. The gentleman at the score-table, he is leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees and his eyes very wide, and the gentleman at the gate is whispering quick to Miss Dorothy, who has turned white. I stood as stiff as stone. I didn’t even breathe. But out of the corner of my eye I could see my father licking his pink chops, and yawning just a little, like he was bored.
The judge he had stopped looking fierce and was looking solemn. Something inside him seemed a-troubling him awful. The more he stares at us now, the more solemn he gets, and when he touches us he does it gentle, like he was patting us. For a long time he kneels in the sawdust, looking at my father and at me, and no one around the ring says nothing to nobody.
Then the judge takes a breath and touches me sudden. “It’s his,” he says. But he lays his hand just as quick on my father. “I’m sorry,” says he.
The gentleman holding my father cries:
“Do you mean to tell me–”
And the judge he answers, “I mean the other is the better dog.” He takes my father’s head between his hands and looks down at him most sorrowful. “The king is dead,” says he. “Long live the king! Good-by, Regent,” he says.
The crowd around the railings clapped their hands, and some laughed scornful, and every one talks fast, and I start for the gate, so dizzy that I can’t see my way. But my father pushes in front of me, walking very daintily, and smiling sleepy, same as he had just been waked, with his head high and his eyes shut, looking at nobody.
So that is how I “came by my inheritance,” as Miss Dorothy calls it; and just for that, though I couldn’t feel where I was any different, the crowd follows me to my bench, and pats me, and coos at me, like I was a baby in a baby-carriage. And the handlers have to hold ’em back so that the gentlemen from the papers can make pictures of me, and Nolan walks me up and down so proud, and the men shake their heads and says, “He certainly is the true type, he is!” And the pretty ladies ask Miss Dorothy, who sits beside me letting me lick her gloves to show the crowd what friends we is, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll bite you?” And Jimmy Jocks calls to me, “Didn’t I tell you so? I always knew you were one of us. Blood will out, Kid; blood will out. I saw your grandfather,” says he, “make his début at the Crystal Palace. But he was never the dog you are!”
For a long time he kneels in the sawdust.
For a long time he kneels in the sawdust.
After that, if I could have asked for it, there was nothing I couldn’t get. You might have thought I was a snow-dog, and they was afeard I’d melt. If I wet my pats, Nolan gave me a hot bath and chained me to the stove; if I couldn’t eat my food, being stuffed full by the cook–for I am a house-dog now, and let in to lunch, whether there is visitors or not,–Nolan would run to bring the vet. It was all tommy rot, as Jimmy says, but meant most kind. I couldn’t scratch myself comfortable, without Nolan giving me nasty drinks, and rubbing me outside till it burnt awful; and I wasn’t let to eat bones for fear of spoiling my “beautiful” mouth, what mother used to call my “punishing jaw”; and my food was cooked special on a gas-stove; and Miss Dorothy gives me an overcoat, cut very stylish like the champions’, to wear when we goes out carriage-driving.
After the next Show, where I takes three blue ribbons, four silver cups, two medals, and brings home forty-five dollars for Nolan, they gives me a “registered” name, same as Jimmy’s. Miss Dorothy wanted to call me “Regent Heir Apparent”; but I wasthatglad when Nolan says, “No; Kid don’t owe nothing to his father, only to you and hisself. So, if you please, miss, we’ll call him Wyndham Kid.” And so they did, and you can see it on my overcoat in blue letters, and painted top of my kennel. It was all too hard to understand. For days I just sat and wondered if I was really me, and how it all come about, and why everybody was so kind. But oh, it was so good they was, for if they hadn’t been I’d never have got the thing I most wished after. But, because they was kind, and not liking to deny me nothing, they gave it me, and it was more to me than anything in the world.
It came about one day when we was out driving. We was in the cart they calls the dog-cart because it’s the one Miss Dorothy keeps to take Jimmy and me for an airing. Nolan was up behind, and me, in my new overcoat, was sitting beside Miss Dorothy. I was admiring the view, and thinking how good it was to have a horse pull you about so that you needn’t get yourself splashed and have to be washed, when I hears a dog calling loud for help, and I pricks up my ears and looks over the horse’s head. And I sees something that makes me tremble down to my toes. In the road before us three big dogs was chasing a little old lady-dog. She had a string to her tail, where some boys had tied a can, and she was dirty with mud and ashes, and torn most awful. She was too far done up to get away, and too old to help herself, but she was making a fight for her life, snapping her old gums savage, and dying game. All this I see in a wink, and then the three dogs pinned her down, and I can’t stand it no longer, and clears the wheel and lands in the road on my head. It was my stylish overcoat done that, and I cursed it proper, but I gets my pats again quick, and makes a rush for the fighting. Behind me I hear Miss Dorothy cry: “They’ll kill that old dog. Wait, take my whip. Beat them off her! The Kid can take care of himself”; and I hear Nolan fall into the road, and the horse come to a stop. The old lady-dog was down, and the three was eating her vicious; but as I come up, scattering the pebbles, she hears, and thinking it’s one more of them, she lifts her head, and my heart breaks open like some one had sunk his teeth in it. For, under the ashes and the dirt and the blood, I can see who it is, and I know that my mother has come back to me.
I gives a yell that throws them three dogs off their legs.
“Mother!” I cries. “I’m the Kid,” I cries. “I’m coming to you. Mother, I’m coming!”
And I shoots over her at the throat of the big dog, and the other two they sinks their teeth into that stylish overcoat and tears it off me, and that sets me free, and I lets them have it. I never had so fine a fight as that! What with mother being there to see, and not having been let to mix up in no fights since I become a prize-winner, it just naturally did me good, and it wasn’t three shakes before I had ’em yelping. Quick as a wink, mother she jumps in to help me, and I just laughed to see her. It was so like old times. And Nolan he made me laugh, too. He was like a hen on a bank, shaking the butt of his whip, but not daring to cut in for fear of hitting me.
“Stop it, Kid,” he says, “stop it. Do you want to be all torn up?” says he. “Think of the Boston Show,” says he. “Think of Chicago. Think of Danbury. Don’t you never want to be a champion?” How was I to think of all them places when I had three dogs to cut up at the same time? But in a minute two of ’em begs for mercy, and mother and me lets ’em run away. The big one he ain’t able to run away. Then mother and me we dances and jumps, and barks and laughs, and bites each other and rolls each other in the road. There never was two dogs so happy as we. And Nolan he whistles and calls and begs me to come to him; but I just laugh and play larks with mother.
“Now, you come with me,” says I, “to my new home, and never try to run away again.” And I shows her our house with the five red roofs, set on the top of the hill. But mother trembles awful, and says: “They’d never let me in such a place. Does the Viceroy live there, Kid?” says she. And I laugh at her. “No; I do,” I says. “And if they won’t let you live there, too, you and me will go back to the streets together, for we must never be parted no more.” So we trots up the hill side by side, with Nolan trying to catch me, and Miss Dorothy laughing at him from the cart.
“The Kid’s made friends with the poor old dog,” says she. “Maybe he knew her long ago when he ran the streets himself. Put her in here beside me, and see if he doesn’t follow.”
So when I hears that I tells mother to go with Nolan and sit in the cart; but she says no–that she’d soil the pretty lady’s frock; but I tells her to do as I say, and so Nolan lifts her, trembling still, into the cart, and I runs alongside, barking joyful.
When we drives into the stables I takes mother to my kennel, and tells her to go inside it and make herself at home. “Oh, but he won’t let me!” says she.
“Who won’t let you?” says I, keeping my eye on Nolan, and growling a bit nasty, just to show I was meaning to have my way.
“Why, Wyndham Kid,” says she, looking up at the name on my kennel.
“But I’m Wyndham Kid!” says I.
“You!” cries mother. “You! Is my little Kid the great Wyndham Kid the dogs all talk about?” And at that, she being very old, and sick, and nervous, as mothers are, just drops down in the straw and weeps bitter.
Well, there ain’t much more than that to tell. Miss Dorothy she settled it.
“If the Kid wants the poor old thing in the stables,” says she, “let her stay.”
“You see,” says she, “she’s a black-and-tan, and his mother was a black-and-tan, and maybe that’s what makes Kid feel so friendly toward her,” says she.
“Indeed, for me,” says Nolan, “she can have the best there is. I’d never drive out no dog that asks for a crust nor a shelter,” he says. “But what will Mr. Wyndham do?”
“He’ll do what I say,” says Miss Dorothy, “and if I say she’s to stay, she will stay, and I say–she’s to stay!”
And so mother and Nolan and me found a home. Mother was scared at first–not being used to kind people; but she was so gentle and loving that the grooms got fonder of her than of me, and tried to make me jealous by patting of her and giving her the pick of the vittles. But that was the wrong way to hurt my feelings. That’s all, I think. Mother is so happy here that I tell her we ought to call it the Happy Hunting Grounds, because no one hunts you, and there is nothing to hunt; it just all comes to you. And so we live in peace, mother sleeping all day in the sun, or behind the stove in the head groom’s office, being fed twice a day regular by Nolan, and all the day by the other grooms most irregular. And as for me, I go hurrying around the country to the bench-shows, winning money and cups for Nolan, and taking the blue ribbons away from father.