Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/490

Jimmy never knew his bloodhound Faithful was such a good swimmer until a man showed him. The man was fishing for roach in a canal, and when the roach took the dough off his hook they nudged the float for more. Jimmy says the roach were very good nudgers. The man told Jimmy that he put aniseed in the dough to give it a relish. He had about a pound of it on the ground beside him and a small piece which he kept rolling between his finger and thumb to make it look darker. Jimmy's bloodhound Faithful ate the big lump of dough and then sat down to enjoy the fishing. Faithful loves anything with a relish to it, Jimmy says, and it made him smack his lips.

Faithful liked watching the float bob, and every time it bobbed Faithful bobbed. Jimmy says it is like when you watch a boy kick a goal at Rugby football and you lift your leg out of sympathy and kick the boy standing in front of you, except that you have to fight the boy afterwards to show it was an accident.

Jimmy says Faithful was very anxious to get to the float to see how it did it, but there was too much water in the canal, and Faithful hadn't room for it all. Jimmy says the aniseed kept egging Faithful on to drink up the canal till he got a hiccough over it.

Jimmy says the man had never heard a bloodhound hiccough so much and he was surprised.

When the man had used up the last bit of the dark dough he looked everywhere for the rest of it. Jimmy says Faithful never said a word, he just went on hiccoughing quietly to himself. Jimmy says the man must have had his suspicions, because he sent Faithful spinning through the air right into the middle of the canal. Before he went away he told another man about it; he said the roach were just beginning to bite real lusty as you might say. The other man stopped to admire Faithful's breast stroke. He showed Jimmy how to train Faithful to fetch things out of the water. Jimmy says you do it by throwing your walking stick into the middle of the canal and saying "Good dog" quickly. Jimmy says it was a nice walking stick, much better than the ordinary ones because it was made of ebony and sank.

Faithful liked to see the man get into the water after his stick. Jimmy says Faithful got very excited when the man dived under the water, and he tried to take the man's shirt to him. Jimmy says the man laughed when he came to the surface and saw Faithful in the water; he said "What has he got in his mouth?"—just like that, you know. The man swam after Faithful and pulled it out of his mouth. He said it was—bless me, a dirty old shirt, and threw it away from him, because he said you never knew what tramp had been wearing it, and he might have had fever or what not.

The man showed Jimmy how to do the trudgeon stroke. Faithful liked to see the man do this stroke; he was lying on the man's vest, guarding it till he came back. Bloodhounds are very good at that, Jimmy says.

Whilst the man was doing the trudgeon stroke Jimmy noticed he had something tattooed on his arm. You see Jimmy knows all about tattooing; you do it with a pen nib and copying ink pencil, and if the other boy goes too deep you wait till you do it on him, and then you can't do it for laughing. You'd never guess what it was on the man's arm. Jimmy saw it when the man was drying himself with his pocket handkerchief—it was an eagle Jimmy says, and then he knew that his bloodhound Faithful had been tracking another spy down all the time. Jimmy says the man noticed that his vest was all hairy where Faithful had guarded it; he sang Faithful a little hymn of hate about it as he was putting it on. He said so much about it that Jimmy crawled through to the other side of the hedge ready for the time when he missed his shirt. Jimmy says he could hear the man wondering where his shirt was as he was crawling through. Jiminy says when the man remembered where he'd seen it last he wanted to catch Faithful and hold his head under the water for a very long time, but Faithful thought he was playing cross-tick with him, and wouldn't let the man catch him. Jiminy says Faithful is a good cross-ticker.

When the man got his shirt again Jimmy saw that Faithful's toe-nails wanted cutting, as you could see where they had caught in the shirt when he was swimming with it.

Jimmy says the man dressed very quickly, and said he was going home to catch his death of cold. He promised to meet Faithful again. Jimmy found out where the man lived, and told a policeman about the German eagle.

Jimmy says the policeman soon found the man; he did it by going up to the man's house and knocking at the door.

He said the man was very rude to him, very, very rude, the policeman said; you wouldn't believe it unless you were in the force, he said.

The policeman said that when he asked the man to take off his shirt the man invited him to come into the back yard where they would have more room.

Jimmy says the policeman told him he took down three pages of evidence which might have been used against the man, but it was all wasted because it wasn't a German eagle after all; it was a love bird, and they are different.

Jimmy says the very best bloodhounds make mistakes sometimes, and it must have been the aniseed in the dough that put him off the scent.

"The following is a copy of a wire received at a certain R.I.C. station quite recently from a farmer—'Grey motor passed here. Killed a heifer containing four gentlemen and two greyhounds, one of which was a clergyman.'"—Belfast Evening Telegraph.

Although Mr. Asquith has declared himself an optimist, and quite rightly, we cannot think that these headlines accurately represent his attitude.