Jimmy says his bloodhound is always very glad to get loose after being
tied up all night, and it's because HARVEY discovered the circulation of
the blood. Jimmy says Faithful doesn't know he has got the circulation
of the blood, but he always has a little run round when he gets free. It
only takes him about five minutes to do his round, and an hour and
a-half afterwards you would never believe he had been round at all,
things are so quiet again.
Jimmy says the man next door told him he didn't mind so much about the
circulation of the blood as the circulation of the bloodhound. Jimmy
says it's because his chickens all begin shouting Hooray! as soon as
Faithful starts, and they get up trees to watch him instead of being
busy laying eggs at twopence each. Faithful doesn't want them to go up
trees, Jimmy says, and tries to make them come down, but they won't--not
on any account--and he has to leave them for other things that require
his attention.
Jimmy says there's a charwoman in one of the houses on Faithful's beat,
and sometimes you can hear her trying to char him, and then lots of
things come out through the front door, with Faithful in the middle of
them. Sometimes you don't know which is Faithful and which is a
scrubbing-brush, and it's because of the revolution. Jimmy says if
Faithful notices that anything wants doing on his way round he always
tries to do it, even though nobody knew that it wanted doing. Faithful
got a sparrow out of a greenhouse like that, Jimmy says. It was a cheeky
sparrow and kept flying about at Faithful and hiding behind the pots on
the stage. Jimmy says bloodhounds don't stand any nonsense of that sort,
and the sparrow ought to have known it. But it kept looking round
flower-pots at Faithful and chirruping at him sideways, and didn't
realise that its life hung by a thread.
Jimmy says the best of well-trained bloodhounds is that they never get
flurried; they go about their work systematically. The sparrow didn't
seem to know that, Jimmy says, and when Faithful got on the stage and
began clearing the decks for action it actually had the face to go and
pick up a worm that came out of one of the pots that fell on the ground.
Jimmy says whenever a pot rolled off the stage Faithful always looked
over the edge to see if it had arrived safely. He is always careful like
that.
Jimmy says the sparrow only escaped by the skin of its teeth, because
just as Faithful had got everything out of the way and was going to set
to work in earnest, the sparrow flew out and went and sat up in a tree
chirruping like anything. Faithful was absolutely disgusted with it,
Jimmy says.
Jimmy took his bloodhound out to the Hill Farm one morning. The farmer
was very glad to see Faithful again, Jimmy says; he told Jimmy that they
were going to cut corn and there would be a main of rabbits in them for
sure. Jimmy says bloodhounds have to turn their hands to anything these
days, even catching rabbits. Faithful didn't seem to mind, Jimmy says,
but it seemed very curious to hear the deep baying of a bloodhound in a
peaceful cornfield. Jimmy says it made the men stop work and look at
each other, and the man who was driving the reaping-machine got down to
see where it wanted oiling. You see he hadn't heard a bloodhound before.
There was another dog there, Jimmy says, in case the rabbits came out
too quickly for Faithful to catch them all. The first rabbit that came
out didn't have any chance, Jimmy says. It bolted out as hard as it
could, and there was a splendid race between the rabbit and Faithful.
You see the rabbit was making for a burrow in the hedge, but old
Faithful got there first and tried to get his head down it, to cut off
the rabbit's retreat. Jimmy says the rabbit was nonplussed, and the
other dog caught it easily. It is beautiful to see two dogs work
together like that, Jimmy says.
Jimmy says Faithful didn't require the help of the other dog with the
next rabbit that came his way, but the other dog was very impulsive. You
see Faithful was lying down with his mouth open trying to look like a
rabbit hole, and he did it so well that the rabbit came straight at him.
Jimmy says Faithful swerved about ten yards to one side in order to hurl
himself bodily at the rabbit, and he would have done it if the other dog
hadn't poked his nose in.
Jimmy says the other dog killed the rabbit, but Faithful went up and
smelt at it like anything. Faithful is a splendid smeller, Jimmy says.
He can retrieve rabbits almost as well as he can catch them.
The farmer was surprised to see how quickly Faithful got off the mark at
the sound of the gun. You see the farmer was standing close by Faithful
and he had no sooner shot at a rabbit than away went Faithful right
across two fields, retrieving as hard as he could. Jimmy had to fetch
him back from doing it.
Jimmy says it was a new experience for the men to have a trained
bloodhound in the harvest field, and they could talk of nothing else
whilst they were having their dinners. You see two of the men had
mislaid their dinners somehow, and every time they looked at Faithful
they kept wondering. One man said his dinner was in a pudding-basin, and
he looked everywhere. Faithful did his best to help him, Jimmy says, and
kept just two yards ahead of him, twisting in and out.
The man noticed something was the matter with Faithful and advised Jimmy
to have his neck wrung: he offered to do it himself.
Jimmy says the man seemed very suspicious because Faithful looked so
T.B. (you know: Totally Bulged); but Jimmy took up Faithful and shook
him for the man to hear, and there wasn't any sound of broken crockery
at all.
The other man who had lost his dinner didn't bother to look for it; he
was busy cutting a stick out of the hedge, and when he had done it he
borrowed a piece of bacon from another man to present to Faithful. Jimmy
says you do it by saying, "Dear little doggie," in a husky voice. Jimmy
says bloodhounds don't like husky voices, they get on their nerves. So
Faithful refused the bacon as hard as he could.
Jimmy says he knew Faithful would follow him, and sure enough, when he
had got a mile on his way home, there was Faithful waiting for him,
holding the pudding-basin in his mouth by the cloth.
Jimmy says when he got home there was quite a crowd round the house
where Faithful had removed the greenhouse from off the sparrow. A
policeman told Jimmy all about it. It appeared, so the policeman said,
that some person or persons unknown had got to know that the people in
the house were harbouring a German governess and had smashed up the
greenhouse in revenge. The greenhouse looked as if it had been struck by
a bomb, the policeman said, and when the people saw it they knew their
secret was out and went and confessed to the police. The policeman told
Jimmy that they had just taken the German governess away to the
police-station.
Jimmy says that when he got home he sat down and looked at Faithful for
half-an-hour--just looked at him. To think that Faithful had been on the
Spy Trail all the time and Jimmy never knew it!
* * * * *
An Incisive Beginning.
"Mr. Gordon Hewart, opening the president of the London Chamber
of Commerce ..."
_The Star_.
* * * * *
The Hebdomadal Council of Oxford University have suspended for six
months the filling of the Professorship of Modern Greek, the view
apparently being that there is no one about just now who understands the
modern Greek.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Youthful Patriot_. "Take away the night-light, Mary. I'd
rather risk the dark than attract a Zeppelin."]
* * * * *
"_The Rivista Marittima_ publishes details of a new German
ironclad, which is claimed to be totally unsinkable.... It is
said to be a Dreadnought-cruiser, fitted with triple skins of
armour, stuffed with non-resisting material."--_Times._
It sounds like one of our conscientious objectors.
* * * * *
"The albatross--its docility was charming--soon occupied a
splendid isolation on the tarpaulined covered hatchway
platform.... I shall in future read Keats' 'Ancient Mariner'
with an accentuated interest."
_Natal Witness._
COLERIDGE'S "Ode to a Nightingale" was rejected as dealing with the
wrong bird.
* * * * *
"Young Lady-Attendant for Allies' Rifle Range, to replace one
getting married; the 3rd in 12 months doing the same; good
remuneration, and comfortable job."--_Glasgow Citizen._
Bow and arrow or .303, Cupid's markmanship remains unerring.
* * * * *
"The Man who dined at Krupp's and worked with the Kaiser."
_Morning Paper Heading_.
The _menu_ at KRUPP'S is not given, but was probably some form of pig.
* * * * *
Another Impending Apology.
"SCOTCH NURSES IN SERBIA.