'What did you want to do that for, you chump?' I said 'I told you he
was shy. Now you've scared him.'
He certainly had. The man was out of the window quicker than you would
have believed possible. He just flew out. I called after him that it
was only Fred and me, but at that moment a gun went off with a
tremendous bang, so he couldn't have heard me.
I was pretty sick about it. The whole thing had gone wrong. Fred seemed
to have lost his head entirely. He was behaving like a perfect ass.
Naturally the man had been frightened with him carrying on in that way.
I jumped out of the window to see if I could find the man and explain,
but he was gone. Fred jumped out after me, and nearly squashed me.
It was pitch dark out there. I couldn't see a thing. But I knew the man
could not have gone far, or I should have heard him. I started to sniff
round on the chance of picking up his trail. It wasn't long before I
struck it.
Fred's father had come down now, and they were running about. The old
man had a light. I followed the trail, and it ended at a large
cedar-tree, not far from the house. I stood underneath it and looked
up, but of course I could not see anything.
'Are you up there?' I shouted. 'There's nothing to be scared at. It was
only Fred. He's an old pal of mine. He works at the place where you
bought me. His gun went off by accident. He won't hurt you.'
There wasn't a sound. I began to think I must have made a mistake.
'He's got away,' I heard Fred say to his father, and just as he said it
I caught a faint sound of someone moving in the branches above me.
'No he hasn't!' I shouted. 'He's up this tree.'
'I believe the dog's found him, dad!'
'Yes, he's up here. Come along and meet him.'
Fred came to the foot of the tree.
'You up there,' he said, 'come along down.'
Not a sound from the tree.
'It's all right,' I explained, 'he _is_ up there, but he's very shy. Ask
him again.'
'All right,' said Fred. 'Stay there if you want to. But I'm going to
shoot off this gun into the branches just for fun.'
And then the man started to come down. As soon as he touched the ground
I jumped up at him.
'This is fine!' I said 'Here's my friend Fred. You'll like him.'
But it wasn't any good. They didn't get along together at all. They
hardly spoke. The man went into the house, and Fred went after him,
carrying his gun. And when they got into the house it was just the
same. The man sat in one chair, and Fred sat in another, and after a
long time some men came in a motor-car, and the man went away with
them. He didn't say good-bye to me.
When he had gone, Fred and his father made a great fuss of me. I
couldn't understand it. Men are so odd. The man wasn't a bit pleased
that I had brought him and Fred together, but Fred seemed as if he
couldn't do enough for me for having introduced him to the man.
However, Fred's father produced some cold ham--my favourite dish--and
gave me quite a lot of it, so I stopped worrying over the thing. As
mother used to say, 'Don't bother your head about what doesn't concern
you. The only thing a dog need concern himself with is the
bill-of-fare. Eat your bun, and don't make yourself busy about other
people's affairs.' Mother's was in some ways a narrow outlook, but she
had a great fund of sterling common sense.