I saw a suppressed smile on his face, and said hotly that Timothy was as
good a name as David. “I like it,” he assured me, and expressed a hope
that they would become friends. I boiled to say that I really could not
allow Timothy to mix with boys of the David class, but I refrained, and
listened coldly while he told me what David did when you said his toes
were pigs going to market or returning from it, I forget which. He
also boasted of David's weight (a subject about which we are uncommonly
touchy at the club), as if children were for throwing forth for a wager.
But no more about Timothy. Gradually this vexed me. I felt what a
forlorn little chap Timothy was, with no one to say a word for him, and
I became his champion and hinted something about teething, but withdrew
it when it seemed too surprising, and tried to get on to safer ground,
such as bibs and general intelligence, but the painter fellow was so
willing to let me have my say, and knew so much more about babies than
is fitting for men to know, that I paled before him and wondered why the
deuce he was listening to me so attentively.
You may remember a story he had told me about some anonymous friend.
“His latest,” said he now, “is to send David a rocking-horse!”
I must say I could see no reason for his mirth. “Picture it,” said he,
“a rocking-horse for a child not three months old!”
I was about to say fiercely: “The stirrups are adjustable,” but thought
it best to laugh with him. But I was pained to hear that Mary had
laughed, though heaven knows I have often laughed at her.
“But women are odd,” he said unexpectedly, and explained. It appears
that in the middle of her merriment Mary had become grave and said to
him quite haughtily, “I see nothing to laugh at.” Then she had kissed
the horse solemnly on the nose and said, “I wish he was here to see
me do it.” There are moments when one cannot help feeling a drawing to
Mary.
But moments only, for the next thing he said put her in a particularly
odious light. He informed me that she had sworn to hunt Mr. Anon down.
“She won't succeed,” I said, sneering but nervous.
“Then it will be her first failure,” said he.
“But she knows nothing about the man.”
“You would not say that if you heard her talking of him. She says he is
a gentle, whimsical, lonely old bachelor.”
“Old?” I cried.
“Well, what she says is that he will soon be old if he doesn't take
care. He is a bachelor at all events, and is very fond of children, but
has never had one to play with.”
“Could not play with a child though there was one,” I said brusquely;
“has forgotten the way; could stand and stare only.”
“Yes, if the parents were present. But he thinks that if he were alone
with the child he could come out strong.”
“How the deuce--” I began
“That is what she says,” he explained, apologetically. “I think she will
prove to be too clever for him.”
“Pooh,” I said, but undoubtedly I felt a dizziness, and the next time
I met him he quite frightened me. “Do you happen to know any one,” he
said, “who has a St. Bernard dog?”
“No,” said I, picking up my stick.
“He has a St. Bernard dog.”
“How have you found that out?”
“She has found it out.”
“But how?”
“I don't know.”
I left him at once, for Porthos was but a little way behind me. The
mystery of it scared me, but I armed promptly for battle. I engaged
a boy to walk Porthos in Kensington Gardens, and gave him these
instructions: “Should you find yourself followed by a young woman
wheeling a second-hand perambulator, instantly hand her over to the
police on the charge of attempting to steal the dog.”
Now then, Mary.
“By the way,” her husband said at our next meeting, “that rocking-horse
I told you of cost three guineas.”
“She has gone to the shop to ask?”
“No, not to ask that, but for a description of the purchaser's
appearance.”
Oh, Mary, Mary.
Here is the appearance of purchaser as supplied at the Arcade:--looked
like a military gentleman; tall, dark, and rather dressy; fine Roman
nose (quite so), carefully trimmed moustache going grey (not at all);
hair thin and thoughtfully distributed over the head like fiddlestrings,
as if to make the most of it (pah!); dusted chair with handkerchief
before sitting down on it, and had other oldmaidish ways (I should like
to know what they are); tediously polite, but no talker; bored face; age
forty-five if a day (a lie); was accompanied by an enormous yellow dog
with sore eyes. (They always think the haws are sore eyes.)
“Do you know anyone who is like that?” Mary's husband asked me
innocently.
“My dear man,” I said, “I know almost no one who is not like that,” and
it was true, so like each other do we grow at the club. I was pleased,
on the whole, with this talk, for it at least showed me how she had
come to know of the St. Bernard, but anxiety returned when one day from
behind my curtains I saw Mary in my street with an inquiring eye on
the windows. She stopped a nurse who was carrying a baby and went into
pretended ecstasies over it. I was sure she also asked whether by any
chance it was called Timothy. And if not, whether that nurse knew any
other nurse who had charge of a Timothy.
Obviously Mary suspicioned me, but nevertheless, I clung to Timothy,
though I wished fervently that I knew more about him; for I still met
that other father occasionally, and he always stopped to compare notes
about the boys. And the questions he asked were so intimate, how Timothy
slept, how he woke up, how he fell off again, what we put in his bath.
It is well that dogs and little boys have so much in common, for it was
really of Porthos I told him; how he slept (peacefully), how he woke
up (supposed to be subject to dreams), how he fell off again (with one
little hand on his nose), but I glided past what we put in his bath
(carbolic and a mop).
The man had not the least suspicion of me, and I thought it reasonable
to hope that Mary would prove as generous. Yet was I straitened in
my mind. For it might be that she was only biding her time to strike
suddenly, and this attached me the more to Timothy, as if I feared she
might soon snatch him from me. As was indeed to be the case.