Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/420

"Look, Alfred, there's the new moon. Have you bowed?"

"No, and I'm not going to. Last time I did and she cut me."

The man next door has had a shock to his system—it was the same man who told Jimmy that snowdrops were harbingers. You see, Jimmy's bloodhound Faithful was sitting on the window-ledge of Jimmy's bedroom catching flies for coming through the window at him. If they didn't come through, he just said "Snap" and caught them as they went by. Faithful is a good snapper, and caught ten flies and a bee. He didn't want the bee really. You see the bee thought Jimmy's bloodhound was a geranium, and settled on his nose. Faithful turned both eyes inwards to get the bee in proper focus, and then they both said "Snap" at the same time, and fell out of the window together.

The man who was passing below had his umbrella up and was expecting rain, not bloodhounds and bees, Jimmy says.

Instead of getting up off the ground, he lay quite still, and put his fingers in his ears waiting for the bang. He knew you had to lie flat on the ground till the bomb went off, but he didn't know how long you had to stop there while it did it. Jimmy says the man appeared very thoughtful when he got up; he seemed to be considering something.

It took Jimmy a long time to find his bloodhound, and then he found him holding his nose in a bucket of water to cool it, and looking from side to side as if he expected another bee. Jimmy says it was all right when he tied a blue bag on to Faithful's nose, except that Faithful had to keep looking round the corner of the blue bag to see where he was going.

Jimmy says Faithful must have swallowed the bee, because when his nose got all right he swallowed the blue bag. Jimmy says bloodhounds have got a lot of instinct like that, and it's done by careful breeding. Faithful was very restless that night. Jimmy thinks the blue bag or the bee must have curdled on his stomach. He tried to sing himself to sleep, but he couldn't go off.

Jimmy says Faithful then tried to go to sleep by counting sheep, but he couldn't, for every now and then he would jump up and chase one of the sheep, and then he had to start all over again.

Jimmy says the man next door said "Hush!" just like that.

Jimmy's bloodhound wasn't quite himself next morning for some reason or other: he had a hiccough for one thing, and seemed perturbed. Jimmy says the bee must have felt a bit unstrung too, as he couldn't hear it buzzing when he listened outside Faithful. Jimmy says that perhaps it couldn't see well enough to buzz.

But whenever Jimmy's bloodhound loses its iron nerve, it has a way which soon makes it feel bold and daring.

It's a tortoise, and it's a hundred-and-three years old, Jimmy says.

Whenever Faithful sees the tortoise he always pulls himself together and dares the tortoise to come out of its shell. Jimmy says that when the tortoise refuses to growl back Faithful gets husky with rage and puts his mouth close to the tortoise and bays down the telephone at him.

Jimmy says Faithful will sometimes wait hours for the tortoise to come and really have it out with him, and just when Faithful is getting tired of waiting the tortoise will slowly push out one hind leg and wag it at him, and then draw it back quickly just as Faithful is going to begin.

Jimmy says Faithful doesn't know the tortoise is a hundred-and-three years old, that's why. But Jimmy could see Faithful had got his iron nerve back again, because after he had had a little snooze he climbed under the hedge and went and drank the milk that had been put out for the cat next door.

Jimmy says the cat came at half time and deliberately went up to Faithful and gave him the coward's blow, and when Faithful was going to hurl the taunt in her face she went and looked like a camel at him.

Jimmy says it was awful, for you know what bloodhounds are when they are roused. They just catch the cat by the middle of the back, throw it once—only once, Jimmy says—up in the air, and then leave it for the gardener to bury.

Jimmy says it's all done by knack, and that's why cats push their backs up out of reach; they know.

Jimmy says it was a very unwilling cat, and was very rude to his bloodhound; it did something at him with its mouth, so Faithful just came away and bided his time; he is a good bider.

In the afternoon Jimmy took Faithful on the trail: he wanted to catch a spy before the grass got damp. He tried a different direction this time, but Faithful seemed to know. He soon got into his steady swing, and led Jimmy right away to a house which stands a quarter of a mile back from the road. They had to crawl stealthily along a hedge, and then through another hedge on to a lawn.

Jimmy says he hid behind a laurel bush whilst Faithful did his deadly work. Jimmy says it's a grand sight to see a bloodhound working well. Faithful first visited some bones he knew of in a tulip bed; Jimmy says they may have been human bones—of another spy. Then Faithful advanced