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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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THE Macdonald baby inched three steps down the path, and fell with a stagger into the outstretched arms of his maiden aunt.
"Doesn't he walk grandly?" she asked proudly.
"To my mind, he doesn't look quite respectable," answered the young lawyer severely. "If I walked like that, my reputation would be wrecked."
"But he's so wee, and he's only just got his balance."
"For the matter of that, I've never got properly on my feet."
Tom Oxford looked rather wistful as he referred to his pecuniary position. For the maiden aunt of the Macdonald baby was just twenty, and had soft brown hair, that curled over a charming face, tanned by years of hatless golfing. In short, she was as sweet and brown as Macdonald's World-famed Chocolate, which, in spite of its purely local reputation, was a concern flourishing enough to make an heiress of Jean Macdonald.
Little wonder, then, that Oxford had left his stuffy office to the mercies of his staff—consisting of a youth of fourteen years—and was assisting at the drunken gymnastics of the young Macdonald.
The sun blazed down on yellow bracken and purple heather; a breeze from the sea freshened the warm air; white gulls swooped across the blue sky. Yet, in the midst of this riot of beauty and colour, Oxford's heart was heavy.
Jean glanced at his handsome cleanshaven face.
"It's downright sinful to look poor-hearted on such a bonny day," she announced severely. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I was only thinking that this young rip will be grown up and breaking the law, instead of my back, before I shall get the price of my articles back out of it."
"You should study hard. A full head makes full pockets."
"It doesn't. As well say a heavy heart makes heavy pockets. This place is lawyer-ridden. I can't get a chance."
Jean's face grew grave; she shrewdly suspected that Oxford's head was not quite equal to his heart. His generosity and good-nature were colossal; but, in worldly wisdom, the Macdonald baby was infinitely more guileful, and better able to look after his own interests.
"Ah well," she said consolingly, "you never know. Your chance will come, and when it does—grab it! Why, what's that?"
Oxford straightened his aching back as he picked up the grovelling baby for the twentieth time; then, as his eyes rested on the pitiful object before him—although he was the toughest forward that ever butted in a football scrum,—they grew dim. True to dramatic traditions, his chance had appeared.
It was a brown dog—undoubtedly intended by Nature to be big, but compelled by man to be undersized. His coat was caked with mud; every rib in his hollow sides could be counted by one possessed of sympathy and an elementary knowledge of arithmetic. Yet, even though he dragged his hind legs after him with the stiff gait that told of miles of weary tramping—there was a kind of pitiful bravado about him, the ghost of a swagger—that was infinitely sadder than cringe.
Resolved at all costs to keep up appearances, he advanced warily, wagging his tail.
"Poor brute!" cried Oxford, commandeering Baby Macdonald's biscuit to throw to the dog. The animal's self-control went to pieces at the taste of food, and he fell upon it with ravenous yelps and gulps.
Jean's brown eyes filled with tears.
"Oh, he's starving!" she cried, as she emptied the bag of biscuits on the ground, even while her thrifty soul reminded her of the sin of wasting biscuits at sixteen pence the pound.
The man and girl watched in sympathetic silence while the dog finished his meal, while the Macdonald baby saw his lunch disappear with even intenser interest.
The man and girl watched in sympathetic
silence while the dog finished his meal.
Then Oxford spoke.
"Well, he's plainly lost. What's to be done with him? I can't possibly do with another dog. Overstocked, as it is."
"I'm glad you know it at last. Well—look at him! We can't turn him adrift again, to be kicked from pillar to post. On the other hand, no one could possibly keep a wretched object like that. I'll take him to the vet's and have him painlessly destroyed. I'll pay to have it done," she added, with an effort.
Oxford groaned. He knew that Jean's suggestion was both kind and practical. He knew that she was right, yet he protested.
"No, no!"
"All right! You shall pay, then!" said Jean, with obvious relief.
"No, no!"
"What on earth d'you want?" asked the girl, impatiently.
Oxford did not know himself. He only whistled miserably. He knew even less poetry that he did law, yet two lines written by a large-hearted man suddenly swam into his brain:
### VERSE
Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day.
He looked again into the dog's eyes. There was just the ghost of a grin about his jaws, that told of a sense of humour. He was no dog with a past. He had been kicked into the gutter from the very start; yet, given a chance, his eyes told so plainly that he could be such a devil of a dog. And he wanted his chance—he wanted his day. He did not want, through the vet's kindly ministrations, to be shot into the grey realms of Shadow-land, there to hunt vainly for what he had missed in this world—a little human kindness.
"I wish—I wish he wouldn't look at me with such doggy eyes," protested Oxford miserably. "I can't stand a dog that's doggy. It's like people that are human—you understand."
Jean nodded. She was no whit moved—more, in fact—for she knew what had to be done.
Oxford raised his eyes and looked at her. For once he passed her pretty face, and studied her costume, chosen without regard to cost, but with keen regard to wear. For the first time he thought of the chocolate-built wealth of the Macdonalds with relief; for the first time he understood why chocolate had been invented.
"I have it!" he exclaimed. "You shall keep the dog. It's providential. You're looking out for one?"
"Yes—a good one. Not a lost mongrel."
Then Oxford fell.
"This is a good dog," he said, with unholy fervour. "If I'm a judge of a dog, it's a clinker. And you'll get it for nothing. Think, what a bargain!"
Jean's soft eyes grew keen. Her father had an open nature, but a close fist; her mother was the soul of kindness, and an excellent housekeeper. Speaking roughly—only it was impossible to speak roughly of anything so soft and brown—Jean favoured both.
"Is it really a good dog? What is it?" she asked instantly.
Oxford looked at the unspeakable object, tried hard to put a name to him, and was plucked hopelessly. He fell back on a flood of inspired eloquence.
"He's worth heaps. At least, he'll be, later on. This is the rough material; but wait until you see the finished article. You must not judge him now. Think what feeding will do for him! Why, where would you be without your porridge?"
"His coat is thin in places. His hair is coming off," continued Jean.
"So's the baby's. Are you going to drown him?" was the fierce counterattack.
They turned and looked at the infant, whose bald head gave him the look of a shaven convict. Although no beauty, the young Macdonald was a fine sportsman, however, for he had forgiven the matter of the biscuits, and was vigorously licking the dog's coat.
Jean snatched him up hurriedly.
"I don't know much about dogs," she continued, "but I don't like the looks of him. Still, if you guarantee that he's worth keeping, I'll take him home."
"You'll never regret it. Miss West—the Dog Girl—would rush you for five pounds, at least. It's something for nothing."
"I'll take him."
Whistling to the waif, Jean carried off the baby.
Oxford caught the dog's eye, as he trotted to heel. A look of understanding passed between them. Oxford knew; the dog knew also. He was an accessory to the fact. He had crept into the shelter of a home on false pretences.
The young lawyer, when he heard the rain pattering on his roof that night, heaved a sigh of relief to think that the poor beast was not once more dragging his stiff limbs through the mud. But with the next day's awakening came the usual crop of recollections and misgivings. In spite of poets, breakfast is about the best thing that comes in the morning.
Oxford was his nearest approach to a hard-headed lawyer just after his tub; his tender heart and violent sympathies froze just a little under the treatment of cold water. He frowned as he gulped down his oats, mindful that he had sowed them in a wild state, only too freely, the preceding day. Then, no longer held in the thrall of two brown doggy eyes, he brought his fist heavily down on the table.
"Oh, what a fool I've been!" he groaned.
In imagination he rehearsed the scene. He had played Mercy to Jean's Justice, and, in his eagerness to avert the sentence of death on a starving cur, in his reading of the part, he had represented Mercy as a brazen liar. He thought with concentrated bitterness of Jean's sweet, candid face.
"She'll have done with me for ever," he said. "She'll never forgive me when she knows she's been done. I'll have to put things straight. I'll see Jean first thing, and get the beastly dog chucked out again!"
When he arrived at his office, however, he found that the unexpected had happened in the shape of a client. He brought with him business that took Oxford away for a week, so that the foundling entirely escaped his mind, until, on his return journey, the rawboned form of John Macdonald entered his carriage.
Oxford greeted the Chocolate Man respectfully; then inquired after his daughters and the grandson.
"Fine—all of them. But you've not asked me about my new grandson, and I doubt but that he'll be the pick of the bunch," said Macdonald, with a twinkle in his eye. "Jean's wonderfully set on him. She's given him the whole of her—except, maybe, a bit over to spare for the man that put her on to a good thing. Mind, I'm saying nought one way or the other."
Then he burst into a jolly laugh at Oxford's scared face.
"Are you talking about the dog?" faltered the lawyer.
"Nobody's talking about anything else at present. You'd best be over early to see him."
Oxford took the advice, and called that evening, filled with the virtuous intention of proclaiming his error and ejecting the Pretender. He could not help feeling uncomfortable, however, at the thought of the week that had elapsed; he had an idea that it was a mistake.
Jean met him with unvarnished delight.
"I'm so glad you've come. Prince Charlie's dying to see you!"
Oxford stifled a groan. His fears were confirmed. He had allowed the audacious cur to get his low-born paw into this respectable family with a vengeance. Prince Charlie, indeed! Must he have nothing less than a title?
The next minute the impostor himself blundered into the room, dragging a raw-boned flapper—John Macdonald's second daughter, Flora—in his train. There was no doubt that the week had done much for him; yet even, as Oxford's heart hardened at the sight of his blatant prosperity, he headed for the young lawyer and nearly bowled him over in his plebeian joy. After all, there was nothing of the mushroom snob about him.
"Hold hard! hold hard!" protested Oxford. "Don't be so demonstrative," he added as the dog kissed him, foreign-fashion, on either side of his face. "Remember, you're a British dog, not a French poodle."
But in the depths of his heart Oxford was not so certain of the fact; he suspected that Prince Charlie's cosmopolitan pedigree included a little extract from every known brand of dog.
Then he cleared his throat for action.
"Would you be very disappointed if anything—went wrong with him?" he asked. "I mean—distemper, or so on," he added lamely, alarmed by the spark of sudden suspicion in Jean's eyes.
"It'd kill me now. I'm so ambitious for him. I'm going to have him entered for the show, and he'll win all sorts of prizes for me."
Oxford gasped. This was going too far. He would have to put a stop to this state of affairs.
"You can't," he objected. "You've got to give his pedigree and have him entered in the Stud-Book, and a lot more."
"I'll get that done all right, somehow. You can do anything with money. And I don't mind spending a little to make lots," was the shrewd answer. "Now, tell me, can he get a first, second, and third?"
"In different classes."
Again Oxford fell, and gave himself up to the delight of joint sympathy with Jean, as, in blissful pride, they discussed the dog's future.
When, at last, he tore himself away, he remembered ruefully that he had not said a word of his proposed warning. He turned, and spoke reproachfully to Prince Charlie, who had followed him to the door.
"Look here! Dog to dog—have you played the square game? I just helped you in, as a decent outsider; nominated you as plain Tom, Dick, or Harry. This Prince business is your own affair. You did that off your own bat, you bounder. Well, play your game, and remember, you take the consequences."
Prince Charlie wagged his tail.
"Knew you wouldn't split on a pal," he said plainly, with his doggiest look.
For the next ten days Oxford called daily on the Macdonald family, for the sole purpose of confession. But, every time, he felt that the penance awarded would be so severe that he waited for a better chance of absolution. At first he went in fear and trembling, expecting to be greeted with the dreaded news that the dog's true value had been gauged by a discerning outsider. But, as time went on, and his South Sea Bubble remained unpricked, he grew quite callous over the claims of the impostor.
One afternoon when, as usual, he had left his office in charge of his staff, and was munching Jean's shortbread with the appetite of a better man, Flora looked from the window, where she was stationed with Prince Charlie.
"Ring for another cup, Jean. Paul West's on the doorstep."
Oxford's heart gave a sudden leap. Exposure had come at last. Before the Dog Girl's shadow darkened the doorway he knew that he was doomed, and his bountiful tea was the criminal's last breakfast.
Like her father before her, Paul West had gone to the dogs.
It was the natural sequence, for when the brandy-sodden Army officer had died he left his daughter nothing but his debts and a knowledge of things canine. At the age of fifteen, the courageous orphan had earned a livelihood by taking out dogs for airings. At the age of twenty-five she took out licences instead. Those ten years left her still in the same line, but at the other end—the head of a thriving business.
There was nothing of the orthodox sportswoman about her appearance; the most masculine thing about her was her billhead—"Paul West."
Dog-whip in hand, and clad in russet tailor-built tweeds, she advanced, and Oxford's heart sank at the sight of her fair, dainty face, alive with keenness and self-reliance. He was rather afraid of the Dog Girl at all times. He knew that when she admired a dog the next step was its immediate acquisition. He also knew, by masculine intuition, that she admired him, and felt uncomfortable. That might have been the reason for the curious fact that whereas the Dog Girl liked Oxford because he was good-looking, Jean disliked the Dog Girl because—she was good-looking.
Paul West advanced, and greeted Jean with her set professional smile, that invited confidence, and Oxford with her private one, which wrecked his—pretty grin though it was.
"I called about the dog you were thinking of buying," she said, addressing herself to Jean.
"Thanks, very much, but I have one. Mr. Oxford picked him up for me. He says he is a real find."
The Dog Girl looked blank at this poaching on her preserves.
"Really! I had no idea that I'd a rival in my business. Is that the dog under the table?"
She whistled, and Prince Charlie emerged at the note, wagging his tail.
Another crisis had occurred in his adventurous life.
There was silence for two minutes, while Oxford sat in stony despair, waiting for the blow to descend. The very marrow in his bones seemed iced. He held his breath, while Paul West's keen blue eyes traced back every ramification and cross of the mongrel's family tree, and unprobed the secrets of his mixed origin. When she had presumably satisfied herself on every point she turned and raked Oxford with the fire of her glance.
"H'm! Since when have you become an expert in dogs? Didn't know it was your line."
"Oh—I've—I've been always keen on them."
Oxford had meant to bluff, but he went to pieces before the penetrating quality of that blue-eyed battery.
"Ah, an amateur in the true sense. By the way, what's the dog's name?"
"Prince Charlie," interposed Jean proudly.
"Oh, the Young Pretender!"
There was a note in her laughter that irritated Jean.
"I'd accept Mr. Oxford's opinion on a dog before any one's," she said hotly. "I mean to exhibit Prince Charlie at the show. What d'you think of his chances?"
Again the Dog Girl laughed.
"Oh, don't ask me! I'm naturally prejudiced. Besides, he'll find his true level at the show. D'you know what class to enter him in? Oh, I mean nothing. Well, it's no good trying to interest you in my Ayrshire now, so I'll say good-bye. Mr. Oxford, I ought to owe you a grudge for spoiling a deal."
"Wait a minute, Miss West. I'm going your way."
Springing to his feet, Oxford walked off with the Dog Girl, regardless of Jean's frown.
Directly they were in the street, he came to the point. There was not an ounce of fight left in him; Paul West had a wonderful talent for bringing to heel.
"I saw that you saw, just now," he began lucidly. "It's no good trying to bluff you. I got Miss Macdonald to take that wretched cur under false pretences, and she will be pretty raggy when it all comes out at the show. You didn't give me away just now, so I'm going to throw myself on your mercy. Can you—can you help me out of this hole?"
The Dog Girl looked at him keenly.
"Why should I help you?" she asked.
"No earthly reason at all. I only thought—well, you know—I thought perhaps you might, somehow."
"As a matter of fact, I never do anything for nothing," went on the Dog Girl. "I'm a business woman, working for my living. I haven't a father who makes chocolate. But I will help you all the same, purely as a personal favour to yourself."
As she looked sideways at Oxford, her blue eyes behind their long lashes were like love-in-a-mist, and the man wished, uncomfortably, that she were not so pretty.
"I suggest," she went on, "that we form an alliance. In my professional capacity, I propose this. Presumably, the dog goes for walks. Well, he can be lost, and found again by a competent person—say, my man. He understands that sort of thing very well. I, in turn, will dispose of him to some one out of the district. It will be in the way of business, and I shall get what I can out of it."
Oxford nodded. Apparently, all the girls he knew were on the make. Still, it was also good business for him, and he gripped her hand warmly.
"You are a brick!" he said. "You've taken a load from my mind."
The Dog Girl gave a short laugh.
"Don't be too sure!" she said. "It's unwise to trust to the generosity of a woman. They're handicapped by being feminine."
As usual, it was in the morning that the first misgivings visited Oxford as to his bargain. The post brought him two letters. One—on tinted paper, with coloured adjectives to match, expressive of grief and anger—announced the loss of Prince Charlie; the other—in the Dog Girl's neat handwriting—was marked "Private and Confidential."
Oxford eyed it doubtfully, and then frowned at the superscription; it seemed to leave the little pink letter out in the cold.
Although he had passed his final fully two years before, on receipt of that letter he first became a lawyer—fully-fledged, on the spot. It aroused all his native caution, and directly he had read its contents, which merely announced the seizure of Prince Charlie, in true professional style, he burned it without delay.
Then he looked at the case squarely, without blinkers. He realised that he had done an exceptionally foolish thing in making a compact with Paul West. He had put a weapon into her hand, which she would not scruple to use in any subsequent break. He did not blind himself with any bluff about masculine superiority. He knew that the Dog Girl's brain was infinitely clearer and better than his own, and he resolved to meet her on her own ground, and not to be rushed.
That the way of the transgressor is hard, he testified in the following week; his feet pressed no primrose path, but trod warily to avoid a succession of traps. When he called at the Macdonalds, his facile nature found a sudden difficulty in feigning spurious sympathy over Prince Charlie's loss, for he was too large a shareholder in the genuine article to succeed in this line.
The whole house was in mourning. He had a snapshot vision of Flora flying upstairs to hide her tear-swollen face. Jean, however, proved to be made of sterner stuff, for she viewed her loss as a cause for grievance rather than grief. She very soon gave Oxford to understand, clearly and definitely, that he could only retain her favour by finding her dog.
This was rather a facer for the young lawyer. All his spare time—which amounted to his entire day—had to be spent in a fruitless search. He told himself bitterly that it was indeed mad dog's work—especially as Jean persisted in regarding his inevitable failures as a sign of incompetency. Under the influence of her veiled impatience, he grew ashamed of his own stupidity, and would have given much if only there had been a dog to find.
"If she drives me much harder, I'll not trust myself," he told himself gloomily. "I'll be bound to produce him, and then—"
Meantime, to complicate matters, the Dog Girl, having got her dainty foot in, was plying her hunt with relentless vigour. Every day brought notes from her—bulletins as to Prince Charlie's condition, and invitations to visit him at the stables. These incriminating documents were promptly destroyed; but Paul did not stop there. She began to call at Oxford's rooms. Her repeated failures to find him at home were enough to have broken a weaker spirit; but the slight tailor-built figure of the Dog Girl—a string of dogs at her tail—continued to be a daily visitor to the street.
The Dog Girl—a string of dogs at her tail—
continued to be a daily visitor to the street.
Oxford grew thin under the strain, as people will in a siege. He took to dodging down back streets, and nearly developed a permanent squint in his efforts to look in opposite directions.
At last a message over the telephone brought temporary relief. Paul West called up to say that she had sold Prince Charlie to a Doctor Emil Riscoe, who would take him back to London the next day.
With a sigh of relief Oxford rang off. He thought again of the dog who had caused such a ripple of excitement in his placid life.
"Well, what does it amount to?" he asked after his pipe. "No one's scored but Prince Charlie. He's used us to play his game. Here am I, with two girls—Jean getting madder daily, and Paul West to be choked off. Pretty girl too! While that old beggar of a dog turns up without a shadow of backing, and is now a respectable whitewashed member of society, going up to London for the season. Blow him, the dear old fellow!"
The very next day, after the long strain of acting an emotional part, Oxford was recalled from this artificial state to the natural man by a very bad shock. He was at the Chrysanthemum Show, loafing round contentedly, presumably to see if Prince Charlie were disguised as a bloom, when, with a guilty start, he ran across Jean, who instantly began to put him through the usual catechism. He was lying fluently, when the Dog Girl passed, in company with a tall spare man, whose closely-shaven hair and thin lips gave him a sinister air.
Jean broke off to look after him.
"D'you see that dreadful man?" she asked. "It's a Dr. Riscoe, from London. He's a vivisectionist. It makes me cold just to look at him. What a mercy to think that Prince Charlie is not in his clutches. I'd rather have him lost! But—what's the matter? You look as if you'd seen a bogey!"
Oxford stared at her stupidly. For a moment he felt sick with anxiety, while the great yellow and bronze "'mums" swam before his eyes like Chinese lanterns. He could only think of one thing. The poor Young Pretender had been betrayed by treachery to an untimely fate, on which he could not trust himself to dwell. Just a rough brown dog, with a wet nose and doggy eyes; a stray whom no one would miss; a fit instrument to further the ends of science. Oxford's blood boiled, and he—the kindest-hearted of men—in one inward comprehensive swear damned the whole of humanity, past, present, and to come. Then, with a muttered excuse, he rushed over to the Dog Girl.
Her eyes shone with triumph, and she shook off her escort with alacrity. Regardless of Jean's indignant glances, Oxford steered her behind a screen of green chrysanthemums, and then promptly opened fire.
"That dog," he said curtly—"I want him back."
Paul's face fell. "You can't. He's sold."
"Yes—nicely sold. So am I. So am I, to trust to a woman. But I'll stop it. That infernal butcher shan't have him, I swear."
The Dog Girl whistled.
"Oh, so that's it. Well, stop yapping, and listen to sense. Dr. Riscoe has bought Prince Charlie merely as a pet. He does not practise on dogs. Besides, do you imagine I would sell a dog for experimental purposes? I'm too fond of them—goodness knows!"
"Yes, yes—granted! I want Prince Charlie back, all the same."
The Dog Girl's blue eyes were reproachful.
"Don't you trust me?"
"No. I don't say you're wilfully deceiving me, but you're deceiving yourself. You'll make a few pounds out of this deal, and you're so anxious to touch your blood-money, that you'd believe any lie. Yes, I know I'm no gentleman. I believe in calling a spade a spade, that's all!"
The Dog Girl turned away.
"I fail to understand your interference," she said stolidly. "I have sold a dog—my dog, in the way of business. I have a perfect right to do so. If you dispute any point, you're welcome to invite another claimant—say, Miss Macdonald—to inspect the animal, when I shall inform her as to how it came into my possession."
Oxford quailed. He realised that he was too deeply dipped to declare open warfare.
"I apologise," he said abjectly. "Let me buy the dog back. I'll offer a higher figure than that doctor."
"No. I refuse to make money out of my friends. You have enough dogs as it is. Shake hands and part friends. I'm acting in your interests."
With a smile, the Dog Girl left him. She was far too well versed in the arts of warfare to part with such a valuable hostage.
Oxford left the show in a brown study and a blue funk—an undesirable colour-scheme. He was too engrossed to stop to appease Jean, who, cherry-checked with rage, never wished to see him again, and wanted to see him just to tell him so.
That night, when the majority of the law-abiding citizens of the town had turned in, Tom Oxford stole out of his rooms and walked in the direction of Miss West's stables. He came back at a sprint, rushing through the silent streets as though possessed, with a dim shape pelting at his heels. Into his fire-lit room they bundled, and then he switched on the light, and laughed aloud.
"Quits with the law at last. Make yourself at home, old chap. We're all bachelors here."
Prince Charlie stood up and tried to wash Oxford's face, which badly needed it after rubbing a cobwebby wall. There was no doubt that he had improved wonderfully under Miss West's expert care, but he was overjoyed to be freed from petticoat government. Then he fell to eating his supper, not at all excited by his change of quarters. Perhaps he knew from the first that he was destined to a life of vicissitudes. Here he was at last in Oxford's rooms, where he might have been from the first, only that it was his fate to embroil others in complicated difficulties for his sake.
Oxford actually read law next day, partly in feverish atonement for his breach, and partly because he was afraid to go out. Moreover, he had to settle the difficult question of an asylum for Prince Charlie.
He had just left the room to wash his hands, when his landlady appeared at the bathroom door, her mouth screwed to the proportions of a pea.
"A young woman is in your room to see you," she said sourly.
Oxford hurried back to find that in his absence Paul West had stormed his stronghold. Her pretty mouth was firm.
"I've come for the dog," she said. "Dr. Riscoe leaves at noon."
"You have the advantage of me," was the glib answer.
Paul whistled, and Prince Charlie instantly padded into the room. She put her hand on his collar.
"Thanks. That's all. Kindly let me pass."
But Oxford stood with his back against the door.
"You don't go out of this room with that dog!" he said.
"I don't go without."
"All right, stop!"
Paul sat down calmly in his best chair, while Oxford regarded her with angry eyes.
"As I remarked before," he said, "I'm no gentleman. I'm a cad. And, while I'm perfectly willing to allow you to stop rent-free, I warn you I don't include board."
"That's all right. You won't starve me out. I have a very powerful chaperon called Mrs. Grundy."
"Oh, hang the scandal!"
Oxford broke off with a violent start as a knock was heard on the door.
"Two ladies to see you," announced his landlady's voice. "The Miss Macdonalds."
With a sinking heart Oxford opened the door an inch and slid into the passage.
"I can't say how sorry I am," he faltered. "But I'm engaged with a man."
No sooner had the lie left his lips than Prince Charlie, excited by the sound of voices, gave a sharp bark.
"That's Prince Charlie!" screamed Jean, with conviction. "Let me in, this instant!"
The next second the room was invaded. As the two rivals confronted each other, Jean hotly aggressive, and Paul coldly defensive, the wretched Oxford realised that the worst had happened.
Jean stretched out an accusing finger at the dog, and then turned to Oxford.
"You stole him!" she said fiercely.
"I did."
"For her!"
She pointed to the Dog Girl. "From her."
"There! You admit it!" Jean ignored the distinction.
"Oh, don't trouble to explain. I quite understand. Come, Flora, we need stop no longer."
"No, no!" cried Oxford. "You're under a misapprehension. I had no intention of making a present to Miss West at your expense. If I could only explain—"
"Please do!"
"Yes, do!" echoed the Dog Girl.
Oxford's jaw fell.
"I—I can't!" he stammered.
Jean whistled, and, with a single backward glance, Prince Charlie trotted off with the Misses Macdonald. He would have liked to stay, but his star called, and he had to follow.
White to the lips, Oxford rammed on his hat, and the next minute a violent slam told the Dog Girl that he had left the house.
That night Oxford made a clean breast of it to Jean—spoiling a good many sheets of paper in the process. But at last the letter was finished—a clear, concise statement of facts. He felt it better that Jean should know the full measure of the fraud he had practised on her than that she should suspect him of an amorous understanding with the Dog Girl. Then he posted the letter and awaited results.
There were none. Day succeeded day, and he received no line from Jean Macdonald. At last, anxious to learn his fate, and also worried on the dog's behalf, he screwed up his courage and called at the house.
He was shown into the state apartment, a hideous early Victorian parlour. This was a sure sign he was in disgrace, and he waited for several minutes. From upstairs he heard voices raised in sisterly conversation that sounded like a quarrel. Then there was a patter of footsteps, the rustle of a dress, and the door opened. His heart sank into his boots with dread; then, as he looked up, his nerve returned, but his face fell in its place. For, instead of the pretty Jean, he was confronted with the angular form of Flora, her freckles swamped in a deep unlovely blush.
"Jean's sorry, but she's not in."
"She is," said Oxford savagely. "Lies are sinful, Flora. You've got a message for me. Now, I want it exactly. Don't be polite and translate."
Flora's eyes lit up; they had grown up before the rest of her face, and had triumphantly passed the ugly, awkward stage.
"All right. You shall have it. She says that you're not only caddish, but you've been absolutely dishonest over the dog, and that as you've been reading law for five years you probably won't know the penalty for false pretences and misrepresentation, but that if you'll ask your office-boy he'll tell you."
Oxford swallowed the insult; Jean, in the original, was certainly staggering.
"That finishes me," he said. "But, Flora—what about Prince Charlie? Has she fired him out again?"
"No, no. She's not cruel. But, now she knows he's a mongrel, she's bought another dog—a good one— from Peel's."
It was Oxford's first crumb of comfort, for the muffled padding of weary feet plodding through the mud had been beating ceaselessly in his ears.
"That's better," he said. "Well, I must be off. Hulloa, Flora! what's up? Why, you're crying. I say, you are a brick. I believe you're sorry for me!"
"I'm not!" was Flora's indignant reply, leaving it an open question which of the three charges she denied. She blinked rapidly as she proceeded:
"It's so—so rotten about the dog. Of course, he's fed and all that; but—it's different. Nobody pets him now. They treat him as an impostor. They don't even call him Prince Charlie. And—he feels it so. I'm sure he knows. He thinks he's in disgrace, and he tries to make friends, but they won't. They won't let even Baby play with him. He's only got one left—me!"
Flora openly choked. It was not a pretty action, but Oxford looked at her with affectionate sympathy.
"I'd like to see him," he said.
When the girl reappeared with the dog, Oxford saw that her words were true. Prince Charlie, though outwardly well-groomed and fed, was a different animal. The savour had gone out of his life. He missed the breath of popularity. He approached cautiously with a depressed air, and stood wagging his tail, evidently desperately anxious to propitiate the powers whom he had unwittingly offended.
"Prince Charlie! Prince Charlie!" called Oxford softly.
Instantly two great paws were on his shoulders, and, with a delighted yelp, the dog rapturously licked his face on one side, just as Flora impulsively kissed the other.
"Oh, you call him that!" she cried. "I'm so glad. He's still got you!"
Then, in shamed silence, they fell to petting him. In the midst of his adversity two loyal supporters remained to the Young Pretender.
For a whole fortnight, Oxford devoted himself solidly to his work, and it was wonderful what an amount of satisfaction he derived from his industry. But on the day of the Dog Show, the whole town took holiday, and he found it impossible to read. That evening, as he passed the Masonic Hall, from whence a pandemonium of barks and wails arose, urged by an uncontrollable impulse, Oxford paid his shilling, and found himself in the crowded alleys, lined with every kind of canine exhibit. His handsome face grew gloomy as he watched them, and noticed how they expressed their different personalities. A bashful prize-winner rubbed shoulders with one plainly eaten up with pride, while other dogs, hysterical at their detention, could not disturb the slumbers of their philosophic neighbours.
"Flora was right, dear girl!" mused the man. "Prince Charlie would never have stood the public showing-up. Thank goodness I told the truth."
Then he did a quick two-step and reversed as quickly, as he nearly ran into the two Misses Macdonald.
He looked steadily at Jean; the flush on her brown cheek rendered her charming.
"Congratulate me!" she cried. "My dog has taken a prize. I am so proud and happy!"
"Good. I'm glad your new dog—or rather your new investment—has turned out so well. D'you know, Miss Macdonald, you are looking radiant, and getting wonderfully like your father?"
To the ordinary eye, the speech was a gross libel, for, whereas Jean was soft and brown, the Macdonald was hard and red.
But, in that sudden moment of clear vision, the young lawyer had touched the spot.
Heedless of Jean's undutiful dissent, he turned to Flora, and studied her with the same clairvoyance. He saw her as she would be in a few years—a beautiful woman. And in that moment he blessed the interval that must elapse before the transformation, for they were so many years to mark time—to work to make a position.
Flora met his gaze with a smile. Apparently, she, in her turn, was clair-audiant above the din, for she raised her hand.
"Hark! I can hear him barking. He misses us. Come and see him!"
Flora met his gaze with a smile.
"Hark! I can hear him barking."
The sisters dragged off Oxford in triumph, bumping him through the crowd, and only releasing him before a dog lying on his bed of straw—his coat shining, his tongue lolling, his nose moist, and his eyes doggier than ever—a very devil of a dog. Above his head was the blue label bearing the words "First Prize." The claims of the Young Pretender were settled for ever. Prince Charlie had come into his own.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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