Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/343

Old Lady (to parson—a perfect stranger—who has joined the New Army). "Well, my lad, isn't this better than hanging about street corners and spending your time in public-houses?"

The man who transferred the "prize bloodhound" to Jiminy met him one day. "Hello, sonny," said he, "what luck did you have with the 'what-is-it'?"

Jimmy showed him Faithful, who was lying curled up on the ground.

"You don't mean to say so!" exclaimed the man. "A Persian, too!" He then said, "Poor puss"—just like that, you know—and put his hand down to stroke Jimmy's bloodhound. Old Faithful uncoiled slowly, saw the man's hand, sniffed at it, didn't like it and so just bit it to make it go away. Jimmy says the man looked touched and a cloud settled on his face; then he shot out his foot towards Faithful. He was trying to show Faithful how to do the goose-step, Jimmy says.

The man recommended some different kinds of food for Jimmy's bloodhound; you got them at the chemist's and had to sign a paper for them. He said that if Jimmy showed Faithful to the chemist it would be all right, he would quite understand.

Since then Jimmy has painted a sign which tells you to beware of the dog. The milkman told Jimmy he ought to have another sign with "The Dog" painted on it, and fix it round Faithful's neck, so that there would be no mistake.

One day, when Jimmy was going to unchain his bloodhound and again hurl him upon the spy trail, an incident happened that would have quite unsettled for serious work any but a really well-trained sleuthhound. A fierce chicken which belonged to the man next door had broken loose and, dashing through the hedge, had come right up to where Faithful was chained. Faithful was just finishing his breakfast, and the chicken tried to wrest from him a cold potato he was about to tear to pieces.

Jimmy says the chicken growled at Faithful and began opening and shutting the feathers on its neck at him like an umbrella. Jimmy says you shouldn't do that to bloodhounds; it's dangerous. It made Jimmy's bloodhound pounce like anything, and every time he pounced the chicken jumped up in the air and waggled its feet right at him. Once the chicken crowed straight in Faithful's face. It was awful, Jimmy says. Faithful without any hesitation gathered himself together and rushed behind his kennel to get a good run at him, when the chicken seized the potato with all its might.

Faithful kept leaping and straining at the chain like anything, Jimmy says, for there was the chicken swallowing great lumps of the potato and stretching its neck to ease them down. It kept going red in the face at him, Jimmy says, and his bloodhound hurled himself about with such force that he thought the chain would break.

The chain held all right—the man Jimmy bought it from said it had been tested up to two tons—but Faithful made such a terrific rush that he slipped clean through the collar. Jimmy says he ought to have tied a knot in Faithful's tail and then it wouldn't have happened.

The next door garden is a big one, and the chicken and faithful had it to themselves. They used a good deal of it, Jimmy says. The chicken kept jumping in the air with its feet tucked up to put him off the scent, but old Faithful never faltered, he kept on doing the side stroke, baying steadily. The chicken moulted a good deal during its progress; Jimmy says it was because it got so hot.

Once they passed the fowl-house, and as soon as the hens caught sight of Jimmy's bloodhound they all began to send out the S.O.S. signal, and then the man came out.

Jimmy knew the man a little; he had told Jimmy the day before that snowdrops were harbingers. The man