Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (400 page)

“He answered that he was quite prepared to go by the window if I would first tell him whether to put his money in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company, Limited, or in the Union Pacific Bank. Life had no further interest for him. All he cared for was to feel that this little nest-egg was safely laid by for the benefit of his beloved ones after he was gone.

“He pressed me to tell him what I thought of nitrates. I replied that I declined to say anything whatever on the subject. He assumed from my answer that I did not think much of nitrates, and announced his intention of investing the money, in consequence, in the Union Pacific Bank.

“I told him by all means to do so, if he liked.

“He paused, and seemed to be puzzling it out. Then he smiled knowingly, and said he thought he understood what I meant. It was very kind of me. He should put every dollar he possessed in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company.

“He rose (with difficulty) to go. I stopped him. I knew, as certainly as I knew the sun would rise the next morning, that whichever company I advised him, or he persisted in thinking I had advised him (which was the same thing), to invest in, would, sooner or later, come to smash. My grandmother had all her little fortune in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company. I could not see her brought to penury in her old age. As for Josiah, it could make no difference to him whatever. He would lose his money in any event. I advised him to invest in Union Pacific Bank Shares. He went and did it.

“The Union Pacific Bank held out for eighteen months. Then it began to totter. The financial world stood bewildered. It had always been reckoned one of the safest banks in the country. People asked what could be the cause. I knew well enough, but I did not tell.

“The Bank made a gallant fight, but the hand of fate was upon it. At the end of another nine months the crash came.

“(Nitrates, it need hardly be said, had all this time been going up by leaps and bounds. My grandmother died worth a million dollars, and left the whole of it to a charity. Had she known how I had saved her from ruin, she might have been more grateful.)

“A few days after the failure of the Bank, Josiah arrived on my doorstep; and, this time, he brought his families with him. There were sixteen of them in all.

“What was I to do? I had brought these people step by step to the verge of starvation. I had laid waste alike their happiness and their prospects in life. The least amends I could make was to see that at all events they did not want for the necessities of existence.

“That was seventeen years ago. I am still seeing that they do not want for the necessities of existence; and my conscience is growing easier by noticing that they seem contented with their lot. There are twenty-two of them now, and we have hopes of another in the spring.

“That is my story,” he said. “Perhaps you will now understand my sudden emotion when you asked for my advice. As a matter of fact, I do not give advice now on any subject.”

* * * * *

I told this tale to MacShaughnassy. He agreed with me that it was instructive, and said he should remember it. He said he should remember it so as to tell it to some fellows that he knew, to whom he thought the lesson should prove useful.

CHAPTER II

I can’t honestly say that we made much progress at our first meeting. It was Brown’s fault. He would begin by telling us a story about a dog. It was the old, old story of the dog who had been in the habit of going every morning to a certain baker’s shop with a penny in his mouth, in exchange for which he always received a penny bun. One day, the baker, thinking he would not know the difference, tried to palm off upon the poor animal a ha’penny bun, whereupon the dog walked straight outside and fetched in a policeman. Brown had heard this chestnut for the first time that afternoon, and was full of it. It is always a mystery to me where Brown has been for the last hundred years. He stops you in the street with, “Oh, I must tell you! — such a capital story!” And he thereupon proceeds to relate to you, with much spirit and gusto, one of Noah’s best known jokes, or some story that Romulus must have originally told to Remus. One of these days somebody will tell him the history of Adam and Eve, and he will think he has got hold of a new plot, and will work it up into a novel.

He gives forth these hoary antiquities as personal reminiscences of his own, or, at furthest, as episodes in the life of his second cousin. There are certain strange and moving catastrophes that would seem either to have occurred to, or to have been witnessed by, nearly every one you meet. I never came across a man yet who had not seen some other man jerked off the top of an omnibus into a mud-cart. Half London must, at one time or another, have been jerked off omnibuses into mud-carts, and have been fished out at the end of a shovel.

Then there is the tale of the lady whose husband is taken suddenly ill one night at an hotel. She rushes downstairs, and prepares a stiff mustard plaster to put on him, and runs up with it again. In her excitement, however, she charges into the wrong room, and, rolling down the bedclothes, presses it lovingly upon the wrong man. I have heard that story so often that I am quite nervous about going to bed in an hotel now. Each man who has told it me has invariably slept in the room next door to that of the victim, and has been awakened by the man’s yell as the plaster came down upon him. That is how he (the story-teller) came to know all about it.

Brown wanted us to believe that this prehistoric animal he had been telling us about had belonged to his brother-in-law, and was hurt when Jephson murmured,
sotto voce
, that that made the twenty-eighth man he had met whose brother-in-law had owned that dog — to say nothing of the hundred and seventeen who had owned it themselves.

We tried to get to work afterwards, but Brown had unsettled us for the evening. It is a wicked thing to start dog stories among a party of average sinful men. Let one man tell a dog story, and every other man in the room feels he wants to tell a bigger one.

There is a story going — I cannot vouch for its truth, it was told me by a judge — of a man who lay dying. The pastor of the parish, a good and pious man, came to sit with him, and, thinking to cheer him up, told him an anecdote about a dog. When the pastor had finished, the sick man sat up, and said, “I know a better story than that. I had a dog once, a big, brown, lop-sided—”

The effort had proved too much for his strength. He fell back upon the pillows, and the doctor, stepping forward, saw that it was a question only of minutes.

The good old pastor rose, and took the poor fellow’s hand in his, and pressed it. “We shall meet again,” he gently said.

The sick man turned towards him with a consoled and grateful look.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he feebly murmured. “Remind me about that dog.”

Then he passed peacefully away, with a sweet smile upon his pale lips.

Brown, who had had his dog story and was satisfied, wanted us to settle our heroine; but the rest of us did not feel equal to settling anybody just then. We were thinking of all the true dog stories we had ever heard, and wondering which was the one least likely to be generally disbelieved.

MacShaughnassy, in particular, was growing every moment more restless and moody. Brown concluded a long discourse — to which nobody had listened — by remarking with some pride, “What more can you want? The plot has never been used before, and the characters are entirely original!”

Then MacShaughnassy gave way. “Talking of plots,” he said, hitching his chair a little nearer the table, “that puts me in mind. Did I ever tell you about that dog we had when we lived in Norwood?”

“It’s not that one about the bull-dog, is it?” queried Jephson anxiously.

“Well, it was a bull-dog,” admitted MacShaughnassy, “but I don’t think I’ve ever told it you before.”

We knew, by experience, that to argue the matter would only prolong the torture, so we let him go on.

“A great many burglaries had lately taken place in our neighbourhood,” he began, “and the pater came to the conclusion that it was time he laid down a dog. He thought a bull-dog would be the best for his purpose, and he purchased the most savage and murderous-looking specimen that he could find.

“My mother was alarmed when she saw the dog. ‘Surely you’re not going to let that brute loose about the house!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’ll kill somebody. I can see it in his face.’

“‘I want him to kill somebody,’ replied my father; ‘I want him to kill burglars.’

“‘I don’t like to hear you talk like that, Thomas,’ answered the mater; ‘it’s not like you. We’ve a right to protect our property, but we’ve no right to take a fellow human creature’s life.’

“‘Our fellow human creatures will be all right — so long as they don’t come into our kitchen when they’ve no business there,’ retorted my father, somewhat testily. ‘I’m going to fix up this dog in the scullery, and if a burglar comes fooling around — well, that’s
his
affair.’

“The old folks quarrelled on and off for about a month over this dog. The dad thought the mater absurdly sentimental, and the mater thought the dad unnecessarily vindictive. Meanwhile the dog grew more ferocious-looking every day.

“One night my mother woke my father up with: ‘Thomas, there’s a burglar downstairs, I’m positive. I distinctly heard the kitchen door open.’

“‘Oh, well, the dog’s got him by now, then,’ murmured my father, who had heard nothing, and was sleepy.

“‘Thomas,’ replied my mother severely, ‘I’m not going to lie here while a fellow-creature is being murdered by a savage beast. If you won’t go down and save that man’s life, I will.’

“‘Oh, bother,’ said my father, preparing to get up. ‘You’re always fancying you hear noises. I believe that’s all you women come to bed for — to sit up and listen for burglars.’ Just to satisfy her, however, he pulled on his trousers and socks, and went down.

“Well, sure enough, my mother was right, this time. There
was
a burglar in the house. The pantry window stood open, and a light was shining in the kitchen. My father crept softly forward, and peeped through the partly open door. There sat the burglar, eating cold beef and pickles, and there, beside him, on the floor, gazing up into his face with a blood-curdling smile of affection, sat that idiot of a dog, wagging his tail.

“My father was so taken aback that he forgot to keep silent.

“‘Well, I’m — ,’ and he used a word that I should not care to repeat to you fellows.

“The burglar, hearing him, made a dash, and got clear off by the window; and the dog seemed vexed with my father for having driven him away.

“Next morning we took the dog back to the trainer from whom we had bought it.

“‘What do you think I wanted this dog for?’ asked my father, trying to speak calmly.

“‘Well,’ replied the trainer, ‘you said you wanted a good house dog.’

“‘Exactly so,’ answered the dad. ‘I didn’t ask for a burglar’s companion, did I? I didn’t say I wanted a dog who’d chum on with a burglar the first time he ever came to the house, and sit with him while he had supper, in case he might feel lonesome, did I?’ And my father recounted the incidents of the previous night.

“The man agreed that there was cause for complaint. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, sir,’ he said. ‘It was my boy Jim as trained this ‘ere dawg, and I guess the young beggar’s taught ‘im more about tackling rats than burglars. You leave ‘im with me for a week, sir; I’ll put that all right.’

“We did so, and at the end of the time the trainer brought him back again.

“‘You’ll find ‘im game enough now, sir,’ said the man. ‘‘E ain’t what I call an intellectual dawg, but I think I’ve knocked the right idea into ‘im.’

“My father thought he’d like to test the matter, so we hired a man for a shilling to break in through the kitchen window while the trainer held the dog by a chain. The dog remained perfectly quiet until the man was fairly inside. Then he made one savage spring at him, and if the chain had not been stout the fellow would have earned his shilling dearly.

“The dad was satisfied now that he could go to bed in peace; and the mater’s alarm for the safety of the local burglars was proportionately increased.

“Months passed uneventfully by, and then another burglar sampled our house. This time there could be no doubt that the dog was doing something for his living. The din in the basement was terrific. The house shook with the concussion of falling bodies.

“My father snatched up his revolver and rushed downstairs, and I followed him. The kitchen was in confusion. Tables and chairs were overturned, and on the floor lay a man gurgling for help. The dog was standing over him, choking him.

“The pater held his revolver to the man’s ear, while I, by superhuman effort, dragged our preserver away, and chained him up to the sink, after which I lit the gas.

“Then we perceived that the gentleman on the floor was a police constable.

“‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed my father, dropping the revolver, ‘however did you come here?’

“‘‘Ow did
I
come ‘ere?’ retorted the man, sitting up and speaking in a tone of bitter, but not unnatural, indignation. ‘Why, in the course of my dooty, that’s ‘ow
I
come ‘ere. I see a burglar getting in through the window, so I just follows and slips in after ‘im.’

“‘Did you catch him?’ asked my father.

“‘Did I catch ‘im!’ almost shrieked the man. ‘‘Ow could I catch ‘im with that blasted dog of yours ‘olding me down by the throat, while ‘e lights ‘is pipe and walks out by the back door?’

“The dog was for sale the next day. The mater, who had grown to like him, because he let the baby pull his tail, wanted us to keep him. The mistake, she said, was not the animal’s fault. Two men broke into the house almost at the same time. The dog could not go for both of them. He did his best, and went for one. That his selection should have fallen upon the policeman instead of upon the burglar was unfortunate. But still it was a thing that might have happened to any dog.

“My father, however, had become prejudiced against the poor creature, and that same week he inserted an advertisement in
The Field
, in which the animal was recommended as an investment likely to prove useful to any enterprising member of the criminal classes.”