Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/602

A lot of people have told Jimmy that he ought to exhibit his bloodhound, Faithful, so Jimmy asked the milkman the proper way to send it to a show.

The milkman said it depended upon the kind of show, but in any case Jimmy would have to give warning first. He said he was going to see a friend of his who was a dog-fancier, and if Jimmy liked to bring Faithful he would take them with him in his milk carriage. Jimmy says they found the dog-fancier sitting fancying outside his house with a pot of beer. He was a very fat man, Jimmy says, and spoke with a husk. He thought a lot of Faithful when he saw him; he called his wife to have a look at him. He asked her if Faithful reminded her of anyone. She saw the likeness at once; it was her Uncle Joe.

"His side-whiskers to a T," the dog-fancier said.

The milkman told Jimmy afterwards that Uncle Joe was not very popular with them.

The dog-fancier looked hard at Faithful and asked Jimmy if he collected postage-stamps as well. But when Jimmy told him of the German spies that his bloodhound had tracked down he was so pleased that he wanted to do something for Faithful, and he decided to drink his health, when suddenly they heard old Faithful on the spy-trail again.

You see Faithful had discovered that when the back of the milkman's carriage is unfastened, it hits the road with a bang if you jump inside and push at it. Faithful is a good pusher, Jimmy says, and it made the milkman's horse jump three feet out of its sleep, and that jerked the back of the carriage up and banged it on the ground again. Jimmy says it made the dog-fancier and the milkman want to start off in a great hurry to go and see, good gracious, what it was, and the milkman started first because the dogfancier stopped to choke over his beer―it was the husk that did it, he said. By the time the milkman reached the road, Jimmy says his bloodhound had worked the milkman's horse up into a mad career.

Jimmy says he was afraid lest Faithful might get run over, and the milkman said he was afraid lest he mightn't. They were very hot on the trail, Jimmy says, and you could hear the back of the milk carriage flapping quite nicely against the road; it never missed once. Jimmy says the milkman had never seen his horse on the spy-trail before, and as he ran he told Jimmy in confidence that if he had known this would have happened he would not have come out, and Jimmy was to catch him doing it again, my word.

Jimmy says they had only run a mile when they came across some signs of Faithful's progress; it was a motorcar which had pushed its nose into a ditch, and the chauffeur showed the milkman how you did it. He said he had just avoided the milk-cart when a black rabbit suddenly bolted across the road and upset his nerve. Jimmy says bloodhounds are like that when they are on the trail; they appear inhuman, and it's because of their lust for blood. There were two ladies in the motor-car, and they asked the milkman to come back and help when he had caught his horse.

Jimmy says when they returned the chauffeur was under the car worrying; they could hear him doing it. They heard him tell the two ladies not to stand there like a couple of fools, but to——— and then the ladies started to cough violently, and the chauffeur mumbled something about asking for the coupling tools, and would the milkman help him for half-a-crown, because he had broken his petrol pipe?

The chauffeur was surprised to see Faithful; he crawled out to study his face. "I thought it was a black rabbit," he said, and then, because Faithful wagged his tail, he tried to strafe him with a spanner.

But Jimmy says Faithful knows all about spanners, he always has one eye fixed on things like that whatever else he may be doing with the other. Faithful liked to see the chauffeur hide himself under the car; he found him again quite easily, and then it was Faithful's turn to hide.

Jimmy says the milkman helped the chauffeur a good deal; he asked him what the petrol pipe was for, and wouldn't it do if he put a piece of cork in it, and what would happen if the motor-car started while he was like that. He told the chauffeur he had a cousin who was a blacksmith, but give him cows.

Jimmy says the milkman would have helped the chauffeur a lot more, but, when he pointed to the carburetter and asked if that was where they put the electric in, the chauffeur was very rude.

Jimmy says one of the ladies got a camp-stool out of the car, and when she sat down Jimmy says she stuck both of her feet out straight in front of her, and then hitched her dress to prevent it bagging at the knees, and then seemed to remember something, for she laughed. Jimmy says that when she saw him him looking at her she asked him if he would like sixpence, and then tried to find her dress pocket. Jimmy says he felt funny all inside whilst she was fumbling for her pocket, because he knew Faithful had done it again, and it was a spy dressed up like a woman.

Jimmy says he had to get over the hedge without being seen, and then he ran as hard as he could to ask the dog-fancier his opinion. Jimmy says the dog-fancier's opinion was two mastiffs, a double-barrelled gun and a policeman, and when they got back they found old Faithful playing at "all round the mulberry bush" with the chauffeur, who had mended his petrol pipe and was trying to lever the car out of the ditch.

Jimmy says the policeman warned them that anything they cared to say would be used as evidence, and then he had to ask the chauffeur to go more slowly, because he couldn't write shorthand.

Jimmy says it made the real lady sit down in the road and have some hysterics, and the chauffeur told her he didn't see anything to laugh at except the policeman's silly face.

Jimmy says the chauffeur looked at the mastiffs and asked the dog-fancier if he was going rabbiting; it made the milkman very happy, Jimmy says.

Jimmy says the man dressed up in woman's clothes turned out to be a spy who had escaped from a concentration camp, because they got some authorities who could swear at him. Jimmy says that when the magistrate heard that there was only one camp-stool, and that the German spy sat down on that himself, he said the real lady must be the German's wife, and it turned out he was quite right.

Jimmy says the chauffeur might have got off, but the milkman told how he had called the other two a couple of fools, and that proved they were friends.

Jimmy says old Faithful was pleased with himself that he wanted to wrestle both of the mastiffs catch-as-catch-can, and he kept daring them to come out of their collars at him until their necks began to look like hedgehogs.

Jimmy says Faithful sat up that night telling another dog all about it over the wireless telephone, until some one switched the other dog off.

From a tea-shop advertisement:―

"Our sanguinary expectations have been more than realized, and each day adds new admirers permanently as visitors."

Newcastle Daily Journal.

Under the distressing influence of the War even our most innocent traders seem to be out for blood.