THE BARNACLE
The crowd was laughing loudly and Purt Sweet (although he was
frequently the source of mirth for his companions) did not enjoy it.
He began to hate that mongrel cur with an intense hatred.
"Get away from me, you brute!" he exclaimed, trying to kick the dog.
"Look out there, son," drawled one on-looker. "If you abuse your dog
the S. P. C. A. will do something to you that you won't like."
"It isn't my dog! I weally never saw it before," gasped the dude,
growing very warm and red as the dog leaped about him in delight.
"You'll have to tell that to the judge," the man assured him.
This really scared Purt. He did not want to be arrested for abusing
the strange dog. But he could not allow it to follow him, that was
sure. The girls were already disgusted with him for having attracted
the brute.
"And I never meant to!" thought the boy, in despair. "Oh! if I only
had him out in the woods, and had a good rock!"
But he dared not pelt the mongrel after what the bystander had said.
The crowd became so numerous that a policeman came strolling that way.
He saw Purt with the dog dancing about him.
"Here! this is no place for a circus. You and your dog get out!"
commanded the officer of the law. "Move on!"
He flourished his baton; the horrified Purt made off around the
nearest corner; the dog stuck like a porous plaster.
"If I only had a club!" groaned Purt.
He escaped the crowd and sat down upon a dwelling house stoop. At once
that imbecile dog rushed upon him, leaped into his lap, and lapped
Purt's face!
"Get out! You nawsty, nawsty brute you!" wailed the dude, beating the
dog off weakly.
The latter considered it all in the game. He had taken a decided
liking to the boy from Central High, and nothing would drive him
away.
Purt had never really cared for dogs. Most boys are tickled enough to
get a dog--even a mongrel like this one. But the dude found himself
with a possession for which he had never longed.
The dog lay down on the walk in front of him, his tongue hanging on
his breast like an inflammatory necktie, and laughing as broadly as a
dog _could_ laugh. He evidently admired Purt greatly. Whether it was
the Lincoln green suit, or the tam-o'-shanter cap, or the dude's
personal pulchritude, which most attracted his doggish soul, it was
hard to say.
Suddenly a window went up behind Purt and a lady put out her head.
"Little boy! Little boy!" she called, shrilly. "I wish you'd take your
dog away from here. I want to let my cat out, and dogs make her so
nervous."
"It isn't my dog--weally it isn't!" exclaimed Purt, jumping up.
Immediately the dog leaped about, barking fit to split his throat.
"You naughty boy!" gasped the lady in the window. "I have seen you
with that dog go past here hundreds of times!" and she immediately
slammed down the sash before Purt could further defend himself.
However the lady could have made the mistake of thinking she had seen
Purt before, is not easily explained. Perhaps she was very near
sighted.
The Central High dude "moved on," with the mongrel frisking about him.
Purt heartily wished the animal would have a sunstroke (for it was
high noon now, and very warm) or would be taken with an apoplectic
stroke, or some other sudden complaint!
Purt wanted to get back to Main Street and rejoin the girls; but he
knew it would be no use in trying that unless he could "shake" the
dog. The girls (especially Lily Pendleton, whom he so much admired)
would not stand for that mongrel brute following in their train.
So, finding that the dog was fastened to him like a new Old Man of the
Sea, Prettyman Sweet decided to sneak back to the dock, by the way of
back streets, and escape the beast by going aboard the _Duchess_.
He set off, therefore, through several byways, coming out at last on a
water-front street of more prominence. Here were stores and tenements.
The gutters were crowded with noisy children, and the street with
traffic.
A fat butcher stood before his shop, with his thumbs in the string of
his apron. When he spied Purt and his close companion, he gave vent to
an exclamation of satisfaction and reached for the Central High boy
with a mighty hand.
"Here!" he said, hoarsely, his fat face growing scarlet on the
instant. "I been waiting for you."
"Waiting for me, Mister?" gasped Purt. "Weally--that cawn't be,
doncher know! I never came this way before."
"No, ye smart Ike! But yer dog has," growled the man, giving Prettyman
a shake that seemed to start every tooth in his head.
"Oh, dear me!" cried Purt. "I never saw you before, sir."
"But I've seen yer dog--drat the beast! And if I could ketch him I'd
chop him up into sassingers--that's what I'd do to _him_."
"He--he's not my dog," murmured Purt, faintly.
Fido had scurried across the street when he spied the butcher; but he
waited there, mouth agape, stump of tail wagging, and a knowing cock
to his good ear, to see how his adopted master was coming out with his
sworn enemy, the butcher.
"I tell yer what," hoarsely said the butcher, still gripping Purt's
shoulder, "a boy can deny his own father, but 'e can't deny his
dawg--no, sir! That there brute knows ye, bub. Only yisterday he
grabbed several links of frankfurter sassingers off'n this hook right
overhead 'ere.
"I ain't goin' to have no dumbed dawg like him come an' grab my
sassingers an' make off with 'em, free gratis for nothin'."
A little crowd--little, but deeply interested--had gathered again.
Had Purt been seeking notoriety in Lumberport, he was getting it
without doubt!
The grocer next door, with a great guffaw of laughter, cried:
"Hey, Bill! don't blame the dawg. He smelled some o' his relatives,
it's likely, in the frankfurters, an' set out to rescue 'em!"
"I do-ent care," breathed the fat butcher, growing more and more
excited. "No man's dawg ain't goin' ter do what he done ter me an' git
away with it. This boy has got ter pay for what the dawg stole."
Purt did not like to let go of money--among his school chums he was
considered a notorious "tight-wad"--but he was willing to do almost
anything to get away from the greasy-handed butcher.
"What--what did the dog take? How much were the frankfurters worth?"
he stammered. "The dog isn't mine--weally!--but I'll pay----"
"A dollar, then. And I'll lose by it, too," said the butcher, but with
an avaricious sparkle in his eye.
"A dollar's worth of frankfurters!" gasped Purt.
"Yes. An' I wish they'd ha' chocked the brute," complained the
butcher.
"I wish they had--before he ever saw me," murmured Purt.
He paid over the money and hurried away from the laughing crowd. And
there, within a block, the dog was right at his heels again--rather
slinkingly, but with the joy of companionship in his eye.
Now Purt was nearing the dock above the Main Street bridge where the
motorboats were tied up. Whether the girls had returned or no, he
hated to face the other fellows with this mongrel trailing at his
heels.
The situation sharpened Purt's wits. Here was a store where was sold
rope and other ship-chandlery. He marched in and bought a fathom of
strong manilla line, called the foolish dog to him, found that he wore
a nondescript collar, and hastily fastened the line to the aforesaid
collar.
It was in the boy's mind to tie the dog somewhere and leave it behind.
If he had dared, he would have tied a weight to the other end of the
rope and dropped both weight and dog overboard.
Just then, however, he met a group of ragged, barefooted
urchins--evidently denizens of the water-front. They hailed the gaily
dressed Purt and the ragged mongrel, with delight.
"What yer doin' wid the dawg?" inquired one.
"Takin' him to the bench-show, Clarence? He'll win a blue ribbon, _he_
will."
"Naw," said another youthful humorist. "They don't let Clarence out
without the dawg. That's to keep Clarence from gettin' kidnapped.
Nobody would wanter kidnap him if they had ter take that mutt along,
too."
Purt was too anxious to be offended by these remarks. He walked
directly up to the leader of the gang.
"Say!" he exclaimed, breathlessly. "Do you want a dog?"
"Not if _that's_ what yer call a dawg, Mister," said the other boy.
"I'd be ashamed to call on me tony friends wit' that mutt. What I
needs is a coach-dawg to run under the hind axle of me landau."
"Say!" breathed Purt, heavily, and paying no attention to the gibes.
"You take this dog and keep it--or tie it up somewhere so he can't
follow me--and I'll give you a quarter."
"When do I git the quarter?" demanded the boy.
"Right now," declared Purt reaching into his pocket with his free
hand.
"Hand it over," said the other, snatching away the rope.
The dude sighed to think how this strange and unknown cur had already
cost him a dollar and a quarter. A dollar and a quarter would have
been far too much to pay for a dozen similar mongrels, and well Purt
knew it.
But the instant the quarter was transferred to the other boy, the
Central High exquisite traveled away from there just as fast as he
could walk.
At once a mournful and heart-rending howl broke out. He looked back
once; the dog was leaping at the length of his rope, nearly capsizing
the holder of the same with every jump, and wailing hungrily for his
fast disappearing friend.
Purt set off on a run. He did not know how soon that rope might
break!
He reached the dock just after the girls, who had arrived breathless
with laughter, and full of the tale of Purt Sweet's new friend.
"Where is he?" was the chorus that welcomed Purt.
"I--I got rid of him," panted Purt.
"Sure?" laughed Chet, as they began to cast off.
"I--I hope so," returned the worried Purt. "I never _did_ see such a
cweature--weally."
"He must have been an old friend of yours, Purt," said Reddy Butts.
"Dogs don't follow folks for nothing."
"But weally, I never saw him before," Purt tried to explain.
"Aw, that's all very well," Billy Long sang out. "But it's plain
enough why he followed you."
"Why?" asked Reddy, willing to help the joke along.
"It was Purt's shanks in those green socks that attracted the dog. I
suppose the poor dog was hungry, and a hungry dog will go far for a
bone, you know."
Purt was hurrying to get his _Duchess_ under way, and he was so glad
of getting rid of the dog that he did not mind the boys' chaffing.
Suddenly a wild yell arose from some of the boys on the dock.
"What's this? See who's come!" yelled Billy Long.
"The Barnacle!" quoth Chet, bursting into a roar of laughter.
Even Lily Pendleton could not forbear giving vent to her amusement,
and she laughed with the others. Down the dock tore the ragged coated
dog, with a fathom of rope tied to his collar.
He leaped aboard the _Bonnie Lass_ and then, with a glad yelp, sprang
to the decked-over part of the _Duchess_.
Purt Sweet looked up with a cry of amazement and received the
delighted dog full in his chest. They rolled together in the cockpit
of the boat, the dog eagerly lapping Purt's face, while the boy tried
to beat him off with his fists.
"The Barnacle!" yelled Chet again, and that name stuck.
So did the dog. He refused to leave. The party left Lumberton with the
foolish beast sitting up in the prow of the _Duchess_, wagging his
ridiculous tail and barking a last farewell to the amused spectators
gathered along the edge of the dock.