Now I don't want to snarl at the Cause--whatever it may be--but it isn't
all beef-bones and country walks by any means. I first became aware of
it about the same time the Dachshund at the corner house began to
declare he was an Aberdeen Terrier. From that time on I scented
something wrong, though could never quite dig it out. For one thing, the
parrot began to practise a new phrase about "Down with the KAI...!" and
also "_Veeve_" the something or other. Then Mabel--who does absurd
things but has to be tolerated because she waits upon me--started tying
coloured ribbons in my hair, and later sticking little flags in my
collar; but I put a stop to that. A week ago things came to a head, and
don't look like improving.
For the last five years my daily life has been brightened in manner
following. We live next door to a railway station and a pastry-cook's.
Every morning Mabel gives me a round hard thing she calls a penny, and
very slippery to hold in one's mouth. I carry the penny to the
pastry-cook's. The girl takes it and gives me a currant biscuit in
exchange. Sometimes there are people in the shop, and then I gaze upon
them meltingly. If they are the right sort, they melt--according to
their means; usually it's pastry. The rest of the day I spend loafing
about the station _and_ the pastry-cook's. Now all that is changed.
Last Thursday Mabel took me to a Committee, a place full of typewriters
and ladies; and I was registered--so they said; Mabel being given a
sheet of paper all over scribble, and a wooden box with "War Relief
Fund" on it. "On Monday, dear," said Mabel, "you begin."
I have begun. Would you believe it? I had to wear that beastly box tied
to my collar! Retrievers, I know, are used to that sort of thing; but
I'm a Collie. All that day I hung about on my old beat, and every now
and then somebody gushed and called me silly names, and dropped a penny
into my box. Conceive the hideous mockery of my position! By four
o'clock there was I sitting outside that confectioner's, wearing enough
pennies to buy the shop out, and yet not a Bath bun to the good!
But that wasn't the worst. About five an urchin came along, looked at
mo, grinned, and tried to put something in my box. Clumsy little beast,
he trod on my foot. I sprang forward with a growl, and his offering,
whatever it was, rolled on the pavement. Round turned an old lady, and,
"Oh you wicked boy," she cried, "trying to put buttons in the hospital
box! No wonder the dog growled, sensible creature." She began fumbling
with her purse, and I was certain I saw a macaroon in her eye. "There,"
she said, "there's half-a-crown for you, Doggie, dear," and, before I
could stop her, put it in the box. I could have bitten her.
Yesterday an old gentleman stopped to stare at me, and, absent-mindedly
putting his hand in his pocket, brought out something rather like a
penny, but smaller and bright yellow, and dropped it into the box. The
very next moment he gave a violent start, looked wildly about him,
turned the colour of cold veal, and muttering, "Lord bless my soul ...
what have I done?... thought it was only" ... made a clumsy grab at my
collar. Of course I knew what he was after; he wanted my pennies; so I
just ambled off, and very soon outdistanced him. An Airedale, I suppose,
would have held him till the police arrived, but I'm a Collie.
That very same afternoon, wandering about the station, I chanced to
saunter into the ticket-office. The clerk's a man with a very
well-regulated mind. He gives me chocolate. Just then, however, he was
out, but his three-year-old boy-puppy was there sitting on a table all
covered with bits of cardboard and little piles of pennies, ordinary
brown ones, big white ones and a few little yellow ones. Well, in less
time than it takes to cock your ears, that baby was shovelling pennies
through the slit in my box and chuckling with joy. I stood it as long as
I could, and then, in the nick of time, snatched a big white penny out
of his paw and bolted off to the confectioner's. Imagine my astonishment
when the girl actually refused to serve me! "Oh, Scottie," she cried,
"there must be some mistake; I _know_ your mistress wouldn't give you a
two-shilling piece."
* * *
I thought Mabel was going to be ill when she felt the weight of my box.
She dragged me off that very afternoon to the Committee, and when they
discovered I'd collected seven pounds ten in three days the idiotic
things they said about me beat anything in my experience since the time
I killed the mouse in the conservatory. But I will say Mabel did the
right thing by me at the pastry-cook's.
She's going to take me to a Church Bazaar to-morrow. But I doubt if a
bazaar can beat that ticket-office.
* * * * *