MY NEW MASTER
I jumped up on the window-seat and looked about me. Some men have
comforts, some don’t. This man had a beautiful room overlooking the
river, with a nice, white bath-room off it. He splashed and tumbled
about in the water, then he dressed himself, and all the while he
examined me.
I licked a few stray hairs in place, and took some mud off my paws with
my tongue, to let him see I was as clean in my ways as he was. I knew
he would not associate with me if I was a dirty dog.
“Boy,” he said at last, “I like you; do you like me?”
I stood up straight, and put my two front paws as far up on his chest
as they would go. I loved him. He was handsome, intellectual and
unhappy.
Not that he looked unhappy. He had rather an amused face, but we dogs
see below the surface.
“Suppose you stay here till breakfast is over,” he remarked. “No use in
bringing on scenes. You’re not hungry, are you?”
I shook my head, and curled up on the window seat. He went away, and
stayed a short time. I smelt coffee and steak somewhere near, but I
never budged, and after a while he came back.
“Suppose you go down town with me, dog,” he said. “The probability is
that you would not spend a very interesting morning with Madame and
Beanie.”
He grinned and I grinned, then at last he walked boldly out with me at
his heels.
We met the lady in the hall, looking perfectly stunning in some kind
of a light coloured morning-gown. Dogs don’t have much of an eye for
colour. In fact, most of us are colour blind.
“Rudolph,” she screamed, “didn’t you turn that ugly dog out?”
He looked over his shoulder. “Oh! he’s still there, is he? Likely
he’ll leave me down town, and run home. _Au revoir_, dearie. Don’t
over-exert.”
She bent her cheek and he pecked at it, then he went downstairs, and
there at the door was such a jolly, seven-seated motor car. Not a
limousine, thank fortune. I hate to drive in a glass box.
The man ran his own car, and I sat between him and the chauffeur. Oh!
what fun. We went flying down Riverside Drive, till we couldn’t fly any
longer, and we had to turn into Seventy-Second Street and go soberly.
Finally we got away down town. So my new master was a business man.
“What will you do?” he said when we at last pulled up before a
sky-scraper. “Go to the garage with Louis, or come with me?”
As if there was any comparison between him and Louis! I snuggled
close to his smart-looking shoes and silk socks, and together we went
in and up, up to a suite of offices where young men, elderly men,
stenographers and messengers hummed, and buzzed, and worked, and
talked till one o’clock.
I lay under the swivel chair in my new master’s inner office, and
enjoyed it all. I love to see human beings working hard.
At one o’clock my master rose, and leaving this hive of industry behind
him, went out for lunch.
I have had training enough for ten dogs, and my new master guessed it.
He never looked behind, and I never looked before. I kept my muzzle at
his shoe heels, and we passed leisurely through the swarms of bees from
other hives that were buzzing through halls and in elevators. All were
after honey, and we found a particularly agreeable place for ours.
To my astonishment, when our turn came to enter an elevator, we did not
go down to the street, but up to the top of the high building we were
in. What a surprise awaited me there. I knew there were restaurants and
roof gardens in New York, but I had never been in one. I had been in
a nice restaurant in San Francisco at the top of a big building, and
I was there on the day of a slight earthquake when the whole body of
waiters, who wore mustaches, rushed down to the street, shaved their
mustaches off, and went back to a famous club from which they had been
discharged because they would wear those same mustaches.
Well, something very fine awaited us at the top of this New York
building. We stepped out of the elevator, went through a door, and
there we were on top of the enormous sky-scraper, and spread out
before us was a view of wonderful New York, less wonderful Brooklyn,
the Jersey coast, and the magnificent bay and islands.
Master had allowed me to jump on a chair so I could look about me, for
dogs, unless they stand high, often lose a view that a human being can
enjoy.
I was enchanted, but the wind blew so hard that I was glad to jump
down, and follow my new master into a protected place. Here were
tables, chairs, mirrors--a regular, attractive and pretty restaurant,
better than any we would find on the street in this down town district.
It was enclosed by glass, and from nearly all the seats, one could
enjoy the same magnificent view that one had outside.
My master did not stay in this eating-place, which I learned afterward
was for all the people in the building. He passed through a long
corridor, went down some steps, along a covered walk--all this was
glassed in--and to the top of a lower building. Indeed, it seemed to
me that we were passing over the tops of many buildings and I found
out afterward that this was correct. Mr. Granton--for this was my
master’s name--and some other men had acquired the right to build on
the tops of the sky-scrapers, and here they had an agreeable promenade
in fresh air, and away from the dust of the street. At last we entered
a pretty little café, furnished in Louis something-or-other style.
Well, attached to this dainty little café with its mirrors, and
spindle-legged tables and chairs, was a tiny, formal rose garden with
real flowers and gravel walks.
The whole thing reminded me of Paris, and I soon found out that it was
a French restaurant, and that my master, who had been partly educated
in France, loved the French people.
He had his lunch at a small table by himself, drawn up close to the
entrance of the garden, and I sat under his chair, and inhaled the
perfume of the roses, and gazed at the pretty thing with ecstasy. It
was enclosed by lattice work entwined with green leaves, and all round
the lattice work ran a deep bed of flowering roses. On looking closely,
I found that they were in pots sunk in trenches. However, the effect
was of a regular out-of-door flowering garden. In the middle was a
round bed with a pink rambler climbing round a sun-dial. In one corner
was a baby pergola with another climber embracing it, and at the top of
the pergola a tiny little bird-box, out of which frequently stepped a
wee yellow canary. He had a box of seeds fastened to the pergola, and
when he wanted a drink, he went to a tiny fountain in one corner of the
garden.
While my master was eating, this little bird sang to him, but did
not offer to come near him. It was not afraid of him, for Mr. Canary
regarded the garden as his home. Neither was he afraid of me, knowing
he had wings, and then, though he was only a mite of a creature, he
knew my attitude was not threatening.
He had a little mate among the roses, but she did not come out--merely
peeped at us.
Master had rather a dainty lunch for such a big man. Mine was dainty
too--a little too dainty for a medium-sized dog--for Monsieur Canovel,
who ran the café, had a Frenchman’s frugal ways. However, the _garçon_
sneaked me a few extras. These foreigners that come round, smirking and
bowing, and hoping that everything is to monsieur’s liking, are really
not as satisfactory as Americans, who apparently scarcely glance at
their patrons, yet if a prominent one brings in a dog, say, “Waiter,
give him a plateful.”
I love to run over the names of things to eat. Even the sound is
appetising, so I will say that master had _bouillon_ and vegetables
served separately, and then French stew, and a dish which smelt like
those delicious things made of hard crusts of bread, which poor
children pick out of the gutters in Paris and sell to the restaurants,
where they are washed and ground and made into little pies.
Nobody saves crusts in this country. We Americans, dogs and human
beings, are too extravagant. A French dog could live on the discards
from my table.
After master had his lunch, he strolled about the gravelled walks of
the tiny garden that was not much bigger than Gringo’s yard, for only
twenty-five men use this pretty place. He did not smoke, he whistled to
the canary, who knew him, and got angry when master picked a rose from
his pergola and put it in his buttonhole.
After a while, a gentleman who had been lunching at a table near us
came over to my master, and began to talk about his arcade scheme,
which I soon found out was a plan to lessen the crowds on the streets
of New York, by building arcades like those on the Rue de Rivoli in
Paris, except that the top would be flat, so the people could walk on
them too.
“It would give a double row of store-fronts,” said my master’s friend,
“and increase the value of second story property. How much will you put
in, Granton?”
Master said he would consider it.
“In addition,” went on his friend, “I have a plan to force the owners
of apartment-houses to build kennels and runways on the tops of their
houses, so that dogs owned by tenants, can be exercised there, instead
of in the street, where they have to wear muzzles.”
Master smiled, and said, “That’s more in my line. Let me know when you
want to get that law passed,” then he nodded good-bye to his friend,
and we sauntered back along the roofs to the elevator, and descended to
our hive.
He worked with the other bees till five, when we swarmed to the street.
There was Louis with the car. I jumped up beside master, and we wended
our way uptown to Madame.
I gathered from Mr. Granton’s remarks that he took her out nearly every
day. On arriving before the apartment-house, he murmured, “Suppose you
get under Louis’ lap-robe.” Then he added, “No--we might as well have
it out first as last.”
When Madame came out with Beanie toddling after her, she stopped, and
gave a squeal at sight of me.
“Rudolph, didn’t that ugly thing leave you?”
I bridled--I’m doggy in appearance, still I’m not ugly--I’m
distinguished. One of the _garçons_ at the French restaurant said I
looked like a _chien de race_ and he was more right than he knew.
“Clossie,” said my master, “I like this dog.”
“I can’t help that,” she said in her trailing voice. “I know he’ll kill
my darling boy.”
At sight of his wife, my master had jumped from the car and stood on
the sidewalk.
“Permit me,” he said, and leaning across her he took young Fatty Beans
and put him on the seat beside me.
The lady gave a shriek, and covered her eyes with her little white
gloves.
When she looked up, young Beans sat beside me, straight as a major. I
had hissed in his ear, “If you don’t pretend to like me, I’ll knock the
stuffing out of you, first chance I get.”
The young fellow didn’t want to get unstuffed, so he turned to his
mistress with a sickly grin.
“Why, darling,” she said slowly, “I believe you like him. Was he lonely
doggie by his own seffies?”
He hadn’t been a lonely doggie by his own “seffies,” but he was too
frightened to tell her so, and if he had, she didn’t possess enough
knowledge of dogs to understand him.
With a wondering face, Madame stepped in beside her husband who had
taken his old place.
“Now what about the dogs?” she asked. “I was planning to take Beanie in
here with me as usual, but perhaps he’d rather sit with his new friend.”
“By all means,” said her husband hastily. “Let them both go with Louis.”
Louis was a splendidly trained servant. When Madame talked dog-talk
he was convulsed with inward laughter, but he showed no outward
trace except by a tremor of the eyelid. But when he got with other
chauffeurs--_ma foi_! You’d die laughing to hear him imitate her--but
he liked Mrs. Granton all the time. I found out that later.
After a time, we set out. Madame and Monsieur in front, Louis and dogs
behind.
Louis liked me, but he used to pinch Beans slyly. Poor Beanie, he
didn’t enjoy that first drive.
I was dying to know some friends of my new family. Fortunately we met
one who was walking down the Drive with a collie dog at her heels. Oh!
what a keen, intelligent Scottish face he had, and hers was just as
keen and intelligent an American face.
My master stopped the car, and his wife called out, “Why, how do you
do, Stanna--want to have a spin with us?”
Miss Stanna, all laughing and rosy in her black furs, pointed to
her dog. “Sir Walter Scott wouldn’t like that. He’s out for his
constitutional.”
“See our new dog?” continued Madame. “He’s absolutely forced himself on
us.”
Miss Stanna gave me a sharp glance. I gave her one. She understood dogs
too. I got up and stretched my neck toward her.
“Later on, dog,” she said, and she waved her hand toward me, “I’ll
be charmed to have a talk with you.” Then she called out, “Good-bye,
Clossie and Rudolph; good-bye, dogs,” and she strolled on.
We went on our way twisting and turning, but always gliding so
smoothly about this wonderful city. Is it because it is so big that one
doesn’t get tired of New York?
We had gone away out to Van Cortlandt Park, and were thumping along a
bit of bad road between the sad trees with their scant covering of dry
leaves, when, to my dismay, we came suddenly abreast of another car in
which sat one of my former owners whom I had not treated very well.