The crate yawned slowly, and Chum emerged all over straw. We had an anxious moment, but the two of us got him down and put the lead on him. Then Chum and I went off for a taxi.
"Hooray," said Chum, wriggling all over, "isn't this splendid? I say, which way are you going? I'm going this way…. No, I mean the other way."
Somebody had left some of his milk–cans on the platform. Three times we went round one in opposite directions and unwound ourselves the wrong way. Then I hauled him in, took him, struggling, in my arms and got into a cab.
The journey to Paddington was full of interest. For a whole minute Chum stood quietly on the seat, rested his fore–paws on the open window and drank in London. Then he jumped down and went mad. He tried to hang me with the lead, and then in remorse tried to hang himself. He made a dash for the little window at the back; missed it and dived out of the window at the side, was hauled back and kissed me ecstatically in the eye with his sharpest tooth…. "And I thought the world was at an end," he said, "and there were no more people. Oh, I am an ass. I say, did you notice I'd had my hair cut? How do you like my new trousers? I must show you them." He jumped on to my lap. "No, I think you'll see them better on the ground," he said, and jumped down again. "Or no, perhaps you would get a better view if―" he jumped up hastily, "and yet I don't know―" he dived down, "though of course, if you― Oh lor'! this is a day," and he put both paws lovingly on my collar.
Suddenly he was quiet again. The stillness, the absence of storm in the taxi, was so unnatural that I began to miss it. "Buck up, old fool," I said, but he sat motionless by my side, plunged in thought. I tried to cheer him up. I pointed out King's Cross to him; he wouldn't even bark at it. I called his attention to the poster outside Euston Theatre of The Two Biffs; for all the regard he showed he might never even have heard of them. The monumental masonry by Portland Road failed to uplift him.
At Baker Street he woke up, and grinned cheerily. "It's all right," he said, "I was trying to remember what happened to me this morning—something rather miserable, I thought, but I can't get hold of it. However it's all right now. How are you?" And he went mad again.
At Paddington I bought a label at the book–stall and wrote it for him. He went round and round my leg looking for me. "Funny thing," he said, as he began to unwind, "he was here a moment ago. I'll just go round once more. I rather think…. Ow! Oh, there you are!" I stepped off him, unravelled the lead and dragged him to the Parcels Office.
"I want to send this by the two o'clock train," I said to the man the other side of the counter.
"Send what?" he said.
I looked down. Chum was making himself very small and black in the shadow of the counter. He was completely hidden from the sight of anybody the other side of it.
"Come out," I said, "and show yourself."
"Not much," he said. "A parcel! I'm not going to be a jolly old parcel for anybody."
"It's only a way of speaking," I pleaded. "Actually you are travelling as a small black gentleman. You will go with the guard—a delightful man."
Chum came out reluctantly. The clerk leant over the counter and managed to see him.
"According to our regulations," he said, and I always dislike people who begin like that, "he has to be on a chain. A leather lead won't do."
Chum smiled all over himself. I don't know which pleased him more—the suggestion that he was a very large and fierce dog, or the impossibility now of his travelling with the guard, delightful man though he might be. He gave himself a shake and started for the door.
"Tut, tut, it's a great disappointment to me," he said, trying to look disappointed, but his back would wriggle. "This chain business—silly of us not to have known—well, well, we shall be wiser another time. Now let's go home."
Poor old Chum; I had known. From a large coat pocket I produced a chain.
"Dash it," said Chum, looking up at me pathetically, "you might almost want to get rid of me."
He was chained, and the label tied on to him. Forgive me that label, Chum; I think that was the worst offence of all. And why should I label one who was speaking so eloquently for himself; who said from the tip of his little black nose to the end of his stumpy black tail, "I'm a silly old ass, but there's nothing wrong in me, and they're sending me away!" But according to the regulations—one must obey the regulations, Chum.
I gave him to the guard—a delightful man. The guard and I chained him to a brake or something. Then the guard went away, and Chum and I had a little talk….
After that the train went off.
Good–bye, little dog.
Part V
Indoors
XXXII
Physical Culture
"Why don't you sit up?" said Adela at dinner, suddenly prodding me in the back. Adela is old enough to take a motherly interest in my figure, and young enough to look extremely pretty while doing so.
"I always stoop at meals," I explained; "it helps the circulation. My own idea."
"But it looks so bad. You ought―"
"Don't improve me," I begged.
"No wonder you have―"
"Hush! I haven't. I got a bullet on the liver in the campaign of '03, due to over smoking; and sometimes it hurts me a little in the cold weather. That's all."
"Why don't you try the Hyperion?"
"I will. Where is it?"
"It isn't anywhere; you buy it."
"Oh, I thought you dined at it. What do you buy it for?"
"It's one of those developers with elastics and pulleys and so on. Every morning early, for half an hour before breakfast―"
"You are trying to improve me," I said suspiciously.
"But they are such good things," went on Adela earnestly. "They really do help to make you beautiful―"
"I am beautiful."
"Well, much more beautiful, and strong―"
"Are you being simply as tactful as you can be?"
"—and graceful."
"It isn't as though you were actually a relation," I protested.
Adela continued, full of her idea.
"It would do you so much good, you know. Would you promise me to use it every day if I sent you mine?"
"Why don't you want yours any more? Are you perfect now?"
"You can easily hook it to the wall―"
"I suppose," I reflected, "there is a limit of beauty beyond which it is dangerous to go. After that either the thing would come off its hook, or―"
"Well," said Adela suddenly, "aren't I looking well?"
"You're looking radiant," I said appreciatively; "but it may only be because you're going to marry Billy next month."
She smiled and blushed. "Well, I'll send it to you," she said. "And you try it for a week, and then tell me if you don't feel better. Oh, and don't do all the exercises to begin with; start with three or four of the easy ones."
"Of course," I said.
I undid the wrappings eagerly, took off the lid of the box, and was confronted with (apparently) six pairs of braces. I shook them out of the box and saw I had made a mistake. It was one pair of braces for Magog. I picked it up, and I knew that I was in the presence of the Hyperion. In five minutes I had screwed a hook into the bedroom wall and attached the beautifier. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at it.
There was a tin plate fastened to the top, with the word "LADIES" on it. I got up, removed it with a knife, and sat down again. Everything was very dusty, and I wondered when Adela had last developed herself.