i3 2 



RECREATION 



I looked at his powerful shoulders of 

 the big trek-hunds which pull carts in 

 Belgium. This theory was unanimously 

 accepted. Other men, when they called 

 on us, found fresh traces of other 

 breeds, and it became a matter of pride 

 when a fresh soecies was introduced in- 

 to his family-tree. Through it all 

 Trilby sat and smiled. He had the 

 most wonderful eyes I have ever seen 

 in a dog. Beautiful, big, brown, honest 

 eyes they were, and no animal possess- 

 ing them could be false. 



But on this first morning Lorry was 

 not his friend, and directly breakfast 

 was ended suggested his removal. 

 Billy and I were against it, and the 

 Other Man being, as usual, neutral, it 

 was agreed that Trilby should stay. 

 But when we came home — we had left 

 Lorry in charge — the dog had gone. 

 Lorry declared that he had merely said 

 to the dog that he was a nuisance. On 

 being pressed, he admitted qualifying 

 the word Nuisance. Trilby, thereupon, 

 and he stuck to his point, arose and dis- 

 appeared. For a week Lorry's life was 

 one of abuse. At the end of this time 

 Trilby returned and was formally 

 adopted. At first I don't think he cared 

 very much for the Other Man or Lorry, 

 although he was consistently courteous 

 to them. Lorry is small, and Trilby 

 persisted in regarding him very much as 

 a spoiled child. He would accompany 

 him to the ferry, and was disinclined 

 to let him abroad alone after dark. All 

 this was to Lorry's mind an insult, and 

 he hurled reproaches and rocks at his 

 protector, who only smiled kindly at 

 him from his regulation distance of 

 fifty yards. 



But a time came when Lorry was 

 very glad to have him there. The old 

 woman who attended to us was used 

 to go home at five every night ; all er- 

 rands run after that hour were run by 

 us. One night Lorry had letters to 

 write and found there was — unwise vir- 

 gins that we were — no oil in the house. 

 The village shop would close at six, and 

 the only thing to be done was to fetch 

 it himself. Thus, with disgust, for 



Lorry had social aspirations and had 

 heard of a fashionable club in London 

 where members are blackballed if they 

 have ever been seen to carry a parcel — 

 he started to the shop a half mile away. 

 As he neared the cottage he beheld, 

 bearing down him and cutting off 

 all avenues of escape, an elderly lady 

 accompanied by a very much younger 

 and prettier one. Now it so happened 

 that Lorry had marked the elder down 

 as a desirable mother-in-law while the 

 other was to be the principal heroine in 

 a little drama he was weaving. This 

 drama, by the way, developed later into 

 a farce, but it was a serious business 

 then as he drew near to them oil-can in 

 hand. To be seen with such a thing he 

 felt would be social extinction, and he 

 gazed 'round despairingly to meet the 

 inquiring eye of Trilby. In desperation 

 he put the handle into the dog's mouth 

 and told him to go home. Trilby, with- 

 out a moment's hesitation, performed 

 the errand, and a minute later Lorry, 

 looking as if oil were as far removed 

 from him as Hoboken, was looking into 

 his divinity's eyes. This did much to 

 win Lorry's heart. The Other Man, 

 who read Mallarme, but in his less lofty 

 hours dabbled in real estate, grew to 

 believe in Trilby's wonderful intelli- 

 gence. By intelligence it must not be 

 supposed that Trilby was one of these 

 impossibilities, who, on being sent to 

 post with a letter, bring it back and in- 

 dicate by a pointing paw that a word is 

 wrongly spelled. 



Trilby was a reasoning animal and a 

 friend. On Sunday afternoon the Other 

 Man's fiancee came to see him, and 

 Trilby came forward to greet her with 

 the perfect courtesy he invariably ex- 

 hibited. 



But she drew back and wondered in 

 a very shrill voice why we could tol- 

 erate such a hideous beast near us. It 

 was the most yellow of all yellow dogs, 

 and if she had her way she would have 

 it shot. She waved her parasol at him 

 viciously. 



I did not dare to meet Trilby's eye. 

 I was wretched with shame to think I 



