Martell is one of those men that you might live next door to for
half-a-century and never know any better. It is entirely owing to his
wife and her love for Peter that Martell and I have discovered each
other to be quite companionable fellows with many tastes in common, and
I am smoking one of his cigars at the present moment.
Peter is the most precious and the most coveted of my possessions. He is
coveted, or was, chiefly by Mrs. Martell, who fell in love with his name
and his deep romantic eyes. Apart from these I can see nothing
remarkable in him. He is certainly the most irresponsible hound that
ever sat down in front of a motor-car to attend to his personal
cleanliness, but still I should not like to part with him. "We must have
a Peter," was the text of Mrs. Martell's domestic monologues, and of
late, before the great disillusionment--that is, after hinting
delicately to me that she would like best of all to have _the_
Peter--she took to sallying forth, armed with the name, into the
purlieus of dog-fanciers to find a criminal that would fit the
punishment.
I was not altogether surprised, therefore, one afternoon when a note was
brought in asking me to step round and have a cup of tea. Martell was
monosyllabic as usual, and we sat and gazed into the fire.
"I don't suppose you would like to part with Peter," he said suddenly.
"I certainly should not," I answered.
Then, after a pause, "Could you tell a good lie?" he asked.
I looked up in astonishment, but just then Mrs. Martell entered and
plunged _in medias res_. She had just returned from the last of those
fruitless expeditions, and the slow realization that there can be only
one Peter in the world had brought her nearly to tears.
"And I've bought such a sweet little collar for him," she said, "with
'Peter' printed in big letters."
I remembered then that the original dog was in daily danger of being
arrested, his very aged collar having been chewed to pulp after his last
castigation therewith.
"And a dear little pair of soft slippers, one for him to play with, and
the other to smack him with if he's ever naughty, although I don't think
he could be--your Peter, I mean. Have you slippers for him?"
"Well, not a pair," I said, "and not exactly slippers. One's a
golf-ball, the other's more in the nature of a boot."
"Oh, but he 's such a sweet-tempered little creature, isn't he?"