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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
April 28, 1915


very cautiously to an open window, on the ledge of which a lady had just placed some crumbs for the birds. Jimmy says Faithful very carefully placed his paws on the window-ledge and, gradually drawing himself up, reached out with his tongue.

Jimmy says the lady must have been in the room and seen Faithful's full face rising at her over the window-ledge, for he heard her give a gasp like pouring cold water down another boy's neck.

When Faithful heard the gasp he stopped reaching out for the crumbs and, holding on with all his might, he fixed the lady with his eye. Jimmy says the lady sank amongst the furniture, he could hear her doing it; but before she did it she said something to Faithful which caused him to lose his grip and fall with his whole weight right back on a pink hyacinth: it bent it nearly double, Jimmy says.

It is awful when a bloodhound fixes you with his eye, Jimmy says; it goes all down your spine and makes you feel like you do when the photographer takes the cap off the camera at you.

Jimmy says that Faithful looked quite downcast when he saw him in the road; it was because he knew he had made a mistake. You see Jimmy had seen the lady before; her name was Mrs. Jones, and she used to collect for the War. But could a prize bloodhound like Faithful possibly make a mistake? that's what puzzled Jimmy.

Jimmy saw the lady again two or three days after when she called to see his mother. Jimmy says Susan opened the door, and the lady told Susan she had called for the War. Susan said if she would step inside she would get it for her. Jimmy says Mrs. Jones. stepped inside and began to wipe her feet upon his bloodhound, who happened to be lying down curled up in the hall.

Jimmy says that's one of the things you should never do with bloodhounds; it goads them. Jimmy says Faithful must have been thinking of the bee in his sleep, for he said "Snap" very quickly this time, before the lady's boot could say it back, and then he did the side stroke upstairs as hard as he could.

Mrs. Jones was very angry with Faithful for saying "Snap" first. She said some words to Jimmy's bloodhound which Jimmy had heard before. Jimmy says it was on the day when he bought a lemon to suck in front of a man playing the flute in a German band. You have to let him see you sucking it by making a juicy noise with your mouth, Jimmy says, and it makes his mouth water, and all in good time he throws the flute at you. Jimmy says you do it by being very quick, and you can hear the German words coming after you as you go along.

Jimmy says Mrs. Jones only said some of the words, and then settled comfortably on the floor with her head in the umbrella-stand. Jimmy's mother heard one of the words; it was "verfluchter." Jimmy says his mother would make a splendid detective if she were only a man. When Mrs. Jones recovered and wanted to go and have her leg amputated, Jimmy's mother took her into the drawing-room and began writing down names in the lady's Belgian Relief book. She told Jimmy she put her own name down for £10, and then Jimmy's for £5, and then Susan's and Faithful's, and kept breaking the pencil after every entry. She said she thought the policeman would never come, and was just going to put his name down for a lot of relief when he brought it himself.

Jimmy says they went very quickly to the police-station because when the cabhorse turned round and saw Faithful he bolted.

The policeman told Jimmy next day that it was a clear case, and that the magistrates were going to sit on Mrs. Jones next week for being a spy.



How Sir Benjamin Goldmore and his junior clerk used to pass one another if they met in the City—

—And how they pass one another now.