214 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



her hands to him, would wait his ried out and opened the door, and out 

 coming, and at the end, with one flying and off he went, without so much as a 

 leap, he would land himself in her arms, thank-you. He had found a fool and 

 almost capsizing her with the force had succeeded in getting something 

 of the impact, and from that refuge out of him, and his business with me 

 look back reproachfully at us. was ended. There was no hesitation ; 

 The cunning little ways of the small he was going straight home, and knew 

 red dog were learned later when I came his way quite well, 

 to know him in the city of Buenos Years afterwards it was a surprise 

 Ayres. Loitering at the waterside one to me to find that the little red dog was 

 day, I became aware of an animal of an inhabitant of London. There was 

 this kind following me, and no sooner no muzzling order then, in the seventies, 

 did he catch my eye than he came up, and a quite common sight was the in- 

 wagging, wriggling, and grinning, smil- dependent dog, usually a cur, roaming 

 ing, so to speak, all over his body ; the streets in search of stray scraps of 

 and I, thinking he had lost home and food. He shared the sparrows' broken 

 friends and touched by his appeal, bread ; he turned over the rubbish 

 allowed him to follow me through the heaps left by the road sweepers ; he 

 streets to the house of relations where sniffed about areas, on the look-out for 

 I was staying. I told them I intended an open dustbin ; and he hung persis- 

 keeping the outcast awhile to see what tently about the butcher's shop, where a 

 could be done with him. My friends jealous eye was kept on his movements, 

 did not welcome him warmly, and These dogs doubtless had owners, who 

 they even made some disparaging re- paid the yearly tax ; but it is probable 

 marks about little red dogs in general ; that in most cases they found for them- 

 but they gave him his dinner a big selves. Probably, too, the adventur- 

 plateful of meat, which he devoured ous life of the streets, where carrion 

 greedily, and then, very much at home, was not too plentiful, had the effect 

 he stretched himself out on the hearth- of sharpening their wits. Here, at all 

 rug and went fast asleep. When he events, I was witness of an action on 

 woke an hour later he jumped up and the part of a small red dog which fairly 

 ran to the hall, and, finding the street astonished me ; that confidence trick 

 door closed, made a great row, howling the little Argentine beast had prac- 

 and scratching at the panels. I hur- tised on me was nothing to it. 



