Chapter M: R. S. Andrews: The Perfect Tribute; François Coppee: The (4)

Some one laughed, and a young man came up and said: “Well, old man,
you were very nearly in hell. Who are you?”

Some one came up, and two of them were discussing him. One of them
said:

“He’s quite all right. He was only knocked out. Better take him in
to the colonel. He may be a spy.”

The other came up, touched his shoulder, and remarked:

“Can you walk, Uncle?”

He replied:

“Aye, I can walk all roight.”

“That’s an old sport!”

The young man took his arm and helped him out of the room into a
courtyard. They entered another room, where an elderly, kind-faced
officer was seated at a desk. The officer looked up and exclaimed:

“Good God! Bradshaw, do you know who you’ve got there?”

The younger one said:

“No. Who, sir?”

“It’s Paul Jouperts!” exclaimed the colonel.

“Paul Jouperts! Great Scott!”

The older officer addressed himself to Sam. He said:

“Well, we’ve got you once more, Paul. We shall have to be a little
more careful this time.”

The young officer said:

“Shall I detail a squad, sir?”

“We can’t shoot him without a court-martial,” replied the kind-faced
senior.

Then Sam interpolated:

“Look ’ee ’ere, sir, I’m fair’ sick of all this. My name bean’t
Paul. My name’s Sam. I was a-thinnin’ a loine o’ turnips—”

Both officers burst out laughing, and the younger one said:

“Good! Good! Isn’t it amazing, sir, the way they not only learn the
language, but even take the trouble to learn a dialect!”

The older man busied himself with some papers.

“Well, Sam,” he remarked, “you shall be given a chance to prove your
identity. Our methods are less drastic than those of your _Boche_
masters. What part of England are you supposed to come from? Let’s
see how much you can bluff us with your topographical knowledge.”

“I was a-thinnin’ a loine o’ turnips this mornin’ at ’alf-past seven
on Mr. Hodge’s farm at Halvesham when one o’ these ’ere airyplanes
come down among the swedes. I tells ’e to get clear o’ that, when
the feller what gets out o’ the car ’e drahs a revowlver and ’e
says, ‘You must ’company I—’”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted the senior officer; “that’s all very good.
Now tell me—where is Halvesham? What is the name of the local vicar?
I’m sure you’d know that.”

Old Sam rubbed his chin.

“I sits under the Reverend David Pryce, Mister, and a good,
God-fearin’ man he be. I took him a cookin’ o’ runner beans on’y
yesterday. I works for Mr. Hodge, what owns Greenway Manor and ’as a
stud-farm at Newmarket, they say.”

“Charles Hodge?” asked the young officer.

“Aye, Charlie Hodge. You write and ask un if he knows old Sam
Gates.”

The two officers looked at each other, and the older one looked at
Sam more closely.

“It’s very extraordinary,” he remarked.

“Everybody knows Charlie Hodge,” added the young officer.

It was at that moment that a wave of genius swept over old Sam. He
put his hand to his head, and suddenly jerked out:

“What’s more, I can tell ’ee where this yere Paul is. He’s actin’ a
gardener in a convent at—” He puckered up his brows, fumbled with
his hat, and then got out, “Mighteno.”

The older officer gasped.

“Mailleton-en-haut! Good God! what makes you say that, old man?”

Sam tried to give an account of his experience and the things he had
heard said by the German officers; but he was getting tired, and he
broke off in the middle to say:

“Ye haven’t a bite o’ somethin’ to eat, I suppose, Mister; or a
glass o’ beer? I usually ’as my dinner at twelve o’clock.”

Both the officers laughed, and the older said:

“Get him some food, Bradshaw, and a bottle of beer from the mess.
We’ll keep this old man here. He interests me.”

While the younger man was doing this, the chief pressed a button and
summoned another junior officer.

“Gateshead,” he remarked, “ring up the G.H.Q. and instruct them to
arrest the gardener in that convent at the top of the hill and then
to report.”

The officer saluted and went out, and in a few minutes a tray of hot
food and a large bottle of beer were brought to the old man, and he
was left alone in the corner of the room to negotiate this welcome
compensation. And in the execution he did himself and his county
credit. In the meanwhile the officers were very busy. People were
coming and going and examining maps, and telephone bells were
ringing furiously. They did not disturb old Sam’s gastric
operations. He cleaned up the mess tins and finished the last drop
of beer. The senior officer found time to offer him a cigarette, but
he replied:

“Thank ’ee kindly, sir, but I’d rather smoke my pipe.”

The colonel smiled and said:

“Oh, all right; smoke away.”

He lighted up, and the fumes of the shag permeated the room. Some
one opened another window, and the young officer who had addressed
him at first suddenly looked at him and exclaimed:

“Innocent! You couldn’t get shag like that anywhere but in Norfolk.”

It must have been an hour later when another officer entered and
saluted.

“Message from the G.H.Q., sir,” he said.

“Well?”

“They have arrested the gardener at the convent of St. Eloise, and
they have every reason to believe that he is the notorious Paul
Jouperts.”

The colonel stood up, and his eyes beamed. He came over to old Sam
and shook his hand.

“Mr. Gates,” he said, “you are an old brick. You will probably hear
more of this. You have probably been the means of delivering
something very useful into our hands. Your own honor is vindicated.
A loving Government will probably award you five shillings or a
Victoria Cross or something of that sort. In the meantime, what can
I do for you?”

Old Sam scratched his chin.

“I want to get back ’ome,” he said.

“Well, even that might be arranged.”

“I want to get back ’ome in toime for tea.”

“What time do you have tea?”

“Foive o’clock or thereabouts.”

“I see.”

A kindly smile came into the eyes of the colonel. He turned to
another officer standing by the table and said:

“Raikes, is any one going across this afternoon with dispatches?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the other officer. “Commander Jennings is
leaving at three o’clock.”

“You might ask him if he could see me.”

Within ten minutes a young man in a flight-commander’s uniform
entered.

“Ah, Jennings,” said the colonel, “here is a little affair which
concerns the honor of the British army. My friend here, Sam Gates,
has come over from Halvesham, in Norfolk, in order to give us
valuable information. I have promised him that he shall get home to
tea at five o’clock. Can you take a passenger?”

The young man threw back his head and laughed.

“Lord!” he exclaimed, “what an old sport! Yes, I expect I can manage
it. Where is the forsaken place?”

A large ordnance-map of Norfolk (which had been captured from a
German officer) was produced, and the young man studied it closely.

At three o’clock precisely old Sam, finding himself something of a
hero and quite glad to escape from the embarrassment which this
position entailed upon him, once more sped skyward in a “dratted
airyplane.”

At twenty minutes to five he landed once more among Mr. Hodge’s
swedes. The breezy young airman shook hands with him and departed
inland. Old Sam sat down and surveyed the familiar field of turnips.

“A noice thing, I must say!” he muttered to himself as he looked
along the lines of unthinned turnips. He still had twenty minutes,
and so he went slowly along and completed a line which he had begun
in the morning. He then deliberately packed up his dinner-things and
his tools and started out for home.

As he came round the corner of Stillway’s meadow and the cottage
came in view, his niece stepped out of the copse with a basket on
her arm.

“Well, Uncle,” she said, “is there any noos?”

It was then that old Sam really lost his temper.

“Noos!” he said. “Noos! Drat the girl! What noos should there be?
Sixty-nine year’ I live in these ’ere parts, hoein’ and weedin’ and
thinnin’, and mindin’ Charlie Hodge’s sheep. Am I one o’ these ’ere
story-book folk havin’ noos ’appen to me all the time? Ain’t it
enough, ye silly, dab-faced zany, to earn enough to buy a bite o’
some’at to eat and a glass o’ beer and a place to rest a’s head
o’night without always wantin’ noos, noos, noos! I tell ’ee it’s
this that leads ’ee to ’alf the troubles in the world. Devil take
the noos!”

And turning his back on her, he went fuming up the hill.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER
By RUDYARD KIPLING

ONCE upon a time there was a coffee-planter in India who wished to
clear some forest land for coffee-planting. When he had cut down all
the trees and burned the underwood the stumps still remained.
Dynamite is expensive and slow fire slow. The happy medium for
stump-clearing is the lord of all beasts, who is the elephant. He
will either push the stump out of the ground with his tusks, if he
has any, or drag it out with ropes. The planter, therefore, hired
elephants by ones and twos and threes, and fell to work. The very
best of all the elephants belonged to the very worst of all the
drivers or mahouts; and the superior beast’s name was Moti Guj. He
was the absolute property of his mahout, which would never have been
the case under native rule: for Moti Guj was a creature to be
desired by kings; and his name, being translated, meant the Pearl
Elephant. Because the British government was in the land, Deesa, the
mahout, enjoyed his property undisturbed. He was dissipated. When he
had made much money through the strength of his elephant, he would
get extremely drunk and give Moti Guj a beating with a tent-peg over
the tender nails of the forefeet. Moti Guj never trampled the life
out of Deesa on these occasions, for he knew that after the beating
was over, Deesa would embrace his trunk and weep and call him his
love and his life and the liver of his soul, and give him some
liquor. Moti Guj was very fond or liquor—arrack for choice, though
he would drink palm-tree toddy if nothing better offered. Then Deesa
would go to sleep between Moti Guj’s forefeet, and as Deesa
generally chose the middle of the public road, and as Moti Guj
mounted guard over him and would not permit horse, foot, or cart to
pass by, traffic was congested till Deesa saw fit to wake up.

There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter’s clearing: the
wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on Moti Guj’s neck and gave
him orders, while Moti Guj rooted up the stumps—for he owned a
magnificent pair of tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope—for he had
a magnificent pair of shoulders, while Deesa kicked him behind the
ears and said he was the king of elephants. At evening time Moti Guj
would wash down his three hundred pounds’ weight of green food with
a quart of arrack, and Deesa would take a share and sing songs
between Moti Guj’s legs till it was time to go to bed. Once a week
Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river, and Moti Guj lay on his side
luxuriously in the shallows, while Deesa went over him with a coir
swab and a brick. Moti Guj never mistook the pounding blow of the
latter for the smack of the former that warned him to get up and
turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would look at his feet,
examine his eyes, and turn up the fringes of his mighty ears in case
of sores or budding ophthalmia. After inspection, the two would
“come up with a song from the sea,” Moti Guj all black and shining,
waving a torn tree branch twelve feet long in his trunk, and Deesa
knotting up his own long wet hair.

It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the return of the
desire to drink deep. He wished for an orgy. The little draughts
that led nowhere were taking the manhood out of him.

He went to the planter, and “My mother’s dead,” said he, weeping.

“She died on the last plantation two months ago, and she died once
before that when you were working for me last year,” said the
planter, who knew something of the ways of nativedom.

“Then it’s my aunt, and she was just the same as a mother to me,”
said Deesa, weeping more than ever. “She has left eighteen small
children entirely without bread, and it is I who must fill their
little stomachs,” said Deesa, beating his head on the floor.

“Who brought you the news?” said the planter.

“The post,” said Deesa.

“There hasn’t been a post here for the past week. Get back to your
lines!”

“A devastating sickness has fallen on my village, and all my wives
are dying,” yelled Deesa, really in tears this time.

“Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa’s village,” said the planter.
“Chihun, has this man got a wife?”

“He!” said Chihun. “No. Not a woman of our village would look at
him. They’d sooner marry the elephant.”

Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed.

“You will get into a difficulty in a minute,” said the planter. “Go
back to your work!”

“Now I will speak Heaven’s truth,” gulped Deesa, with an
inspiration. “I haven’t been drunk for two months. I desire to
depart in order to get properly drunk afar off and distant from this
heavenly plantation. Thus I shall cause no trouble.”

A flickering smile crossed the planter’s face. “Deesa,” said he,
“you’ve spoken the truth, and I’d give you leave on the spot if
anything could be done with Moti Guj while you’re away. You know
that he will only obey your orders.”

“May the light of the heavens live forty thousand years. I shall be
absent but ten little days. After that, upon my faith and honor and
soul, I return. As to the inconsiderable interval, have I the
gracious permission of the heaven-born to call up Moti Guj?”

Permission was granted, and in answer to Deesa’s shrill yell, the
mighty tusker swung out of the shade of a clump of trees where he
had been squirting dust over himself till his master should return.

“Light of my heart, protector of the drunken, mountain of might,
give ear!” said Deesa, standing in front of him.

Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his trunk. “I am going away,”
said Deesa.

Moti Guj’s eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts as well as his master. One
could snatch all manner of nice things from the roadside then.

“But you, you fussy old pig, must stay behind and work.”

The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look delighted. He hated
stump-hauling on the plantation. It hurt his teeth.

“I shall be gone for ten days, O delectable one. Hold up your near
forefoot and I’ll impress the fact upon it, warty toad of a dried
mud-puddle.” Deesa took a tent-peg and banged Moti Guj ten times on
the nails. Moti Guj grunted and shuffled from foot to foot.

“Ten days,” said Deesa, “you will work and haul and root the trees
as Chihun here shall order you. Take up Chihun and set him on your
neck!” Moti Guj curled the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot
there and was swung on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy
_ankus_—the iron elephant goad.

Chihun thumped Moti Guj’s bald head as a paver thumps a curbstone.

Moti Guj trumpeted.

“Be still, hog of the backwoods! Chihun’s your mahout for ten days.
And now bid me good-by, beast after mine own heart. Oh, my lord, my
king! Jewel of all created elephants, lily of the herd, preserve
your honored health; be virtuous. Adieu!”

Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung him into the air
twice. This was his way of bidding him good-by.

“He’ll work now,” said Deesa to the planter. “Have I leave to go?”

The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the woods. Moti Guj went
back to haul stumps.

Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy and forlorn for all
that. Chihun gave him a ball of spices, and tickled him under the
chin, and Chihun’s little baby cooed to him after work was over, and
Chihun’s wife called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a bachelor by
instinct, as Deesa was. He did not understand the domestic emotions.
He wanted the light of his universe back again—the drink and the
drunken slumber, the savage beatings and the savage caresses.

None the less he worked well, and the planter wondered. Deesa had
wandered along the roads till he met a marriage procession of his
own caste and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted with it
past all knowledge of the lapse of time.

The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there returned no Deesa.
Moti Guj was loosed from his ropes for the daily stint. He swung
clear, looked round, shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away,
as one having business elsewhere.

“Hi! ho! Come back, you,” shouted Chihun. “Come back and put me on
your neck, misborn mountain! Return, splendor of the hillsides!
Adornment of all India, heave to, or I’ll bang every toe off your
fat forefoot!”

Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. Chihun ran after him with
a rope and caught him up. Moti Guj put his ears forward, and Chihun
knew what that meant, though he tried to carry it off with high
words.

“None of your nonsense with me,” said he. “To your pickets,
devil-son.”

“Hrrump!” said Moti Guj, and that was all—that and the forebent
ears.

Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a branch for a
toothpick, and strolled about the clearing, making fun of the other
elephants, who had just set to work.

Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, who came out
with a dog-whip and cracked it furiously. Moti Guj paid the white
man the compliment of charging him nearly a quarter of a mile across
the clearing and “Hrrumping” him into his veranda. Then he stood
outside the house chuckling to himself, and shaking all over with
the fun of it, as an elephant will.

“We’ll thrash him,” said the planter. “He shall have the finest
thrashing ever elephant received. Give Kala Nag and Nazim twelve
foot of chain apiece, and tell them to lay on twenty blows.”

Kala Nag—which means Black Snake—and Nazim were two of the biggest
elephants in the lines, and one of their duties was to administer
the graver punishments, since no man can beat an elephant properly.

They took the whipping-chains and rattled them in their trunks as
they sidled up to Moti Guj, meaning to hustle him between them. Moti
Guj had never, in all his life of thirty-nine years, been whipped,
and he did not intend to begin a new experience. So he waited,
waving his head from right to left, and measuring the precise spot
in Kala Nag’s fat hide where a blunt tusk would sink deepest. Kala
Nag had no tusks; the chain was the badge of his authority; but for
all that, he swung wide of Moti Guj at the last minute, and tried to
appear as if he had brought the chain out for amusement. Nazim
turned round and went home early. He did not feel fighting fit that
morning, and so Moti Guj was left standing alone with his ears
cocked.

That decided the planter to argue no more, and Moti Guj rolled back
to his inspection of the clearing. An elephant who will not work,
and is not tied up, is about as manageable as an eighty-one-ton gun
loose in a heavy seaway. He slapped old friends on the back and
asked them if the stumps were coming away easily; he talked nonsense
concerning labor and the inalienable rights of elephants to a long
“nooning”; and, wandering to and fro, he thoroughly demoralized the
garden till sundown, when he returned to his pickets for food.

“If you won’t work, you shan’t eat,” said Chihun angrily. “You’re a
wild elephant, and no educated animal at all. Go back to your
jungle.”

Chihun’s little brown baby was rolling on the floor of the hut, and
stretching out its fat arms to the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti
Guj knew well that it was the dearest thing on earth to Chihun. He
swung out his trunk with a fascinating crook at the end, and the
brown baby threw itself shouting upon it. Moti Guj made fast and
pulled up till the brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet
above his father’s head.

“Great Lord!” said Chihun. “Flour cakes of the best, twelve in
number, two feet across, and soaked in rum, shall be yours on the
instant, and two hundred pounds’ weight of fresh-cut young
sugar-cane therewith. Deign only to put down safely that
insignificant brat who is my heart and my life to me.”

Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfortably between his forefeet,
that could have knocked into toothpicks all Chihun’s hut, and waited
for his food. He ate it, and the brown baby crawled away. Moti Guj
dozed, and thought of Deesa. One of many mysteries connected with
the elephant is that his huge body needs less sleep than anything
else that lives. Four or five hours in the night suffice—two just
before midnight, lying down on one side; two just after one o’clock,
lying down on the other. The rest of the silent hours are filled
with eating and fidgeting and long grumbling soliloquies.

At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his pickets, for a
thought had come to him that Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere in
the dark forest with none to look after him. So all that night he
chased through the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking
his ears. He went down to the river and blared across the shallows
where Deesa used to wash him, and there was no answer. He could not
find Deesa, but he disturbed all the other elephants in the lines,
and nearly frightened to death some gypsies in the woods.

At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had been very drunk
indeed, and he expected to get into trouble for outstaying his
leave. He drew a long breath when he saw that the bungalow and the
plantation were still uninjured, for he knew something of Moti Guj’s
temper, and reported himself with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj
had gone to his pickets for breakfast. The night exercise had made
him hungry.

“Call up your beast,” said the planter, and Deesa shouted in the
mysterious elephant language, that some mahouts believe came from
China at the birth of the world, when elephants and not men were
masters. Moti Guj heard and came. Elephants do not gallop. They move
from places at varying rates of speed. If an elephant wished to
catch an express train he could not gallop, but he could catch the
train. So Moti Guj was at the planter’s door almost before Chihun
noticed that he had left his pickets. He fell into Deesa’s arms
trumpeting with joy, and the man and beast wept and slobbered over
each other, and handled each other from head to heel to see that no
harm had befallen.

“Now we will get to work,” said Deesa. “Lift me up, my son and my
joy.”

Moti Guj swung him up and the two went to the coffee-clearing to
look for difficult stumps.

The planter was too astonished to be very angry.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

GULLIVER THE GREAT
By WALTER A. DYER

IT was a mild evening in early spring, and the magnolias were in
bloom. We motored around the park, turned up a side street, and
finally came to a throbbing standstill before the Churchwarden Club.

There was nothing about its exterior to indicate that it was a
clubhouse at all, but within there was an indefinable atmosphere of
early Victorian comfort. There was something about it that suggested
Mr. Pickwick. Old prints of horses and ships and battles hung upon
the walls, and the oak was dark and old. There seemed to be no
decorative scheme or keynote, and yet the atmosphere was utterly
distinctive. It was my first visit to the Churchwarden Club, of
which my quaint, old-fashioned Uncle Ford had long been a member,
and I was charmed.

We dined in the rathskeller, the walls of which were completely
covered with long churchwarden pipes, arranged in the most intricate
and marvelous patterns; and after our mutton-chop and ale and plum
pudding, we filled with the choicest of tobaccos the pipes which the
old major-domo brought us.

Then came Jacob R. Enderby to smoke with us.

Tall and spare he was, with long, straight, black hair, large,
aquiline nose, and piercing eyes. I disgraced myself by staring at
him. I didn’t know that such a man existed in New York, and yet I
couldn’t decide whether his habitat should be Arizona or Cape Cod.

Enderby and Uncle Ford were deep in a discussion of the
statesmanship of James G. Blaine, when a waiter summoned my uncle to
the telephone.

I neglected to state that my uncle, in his prosaic hours, is a
physician; and this was a call. I knew it the moment I saw the
waiter approaching. I was disappointed and disgusted.

Uncle Ford saw this and laughed.

“Cheer up!” said he. “You needn’t come with me to visit the sick.
I’ll be back in an hour, and meanwhile Mr. Enderby will take care of
you; won’t you, Jake?”

For answer Enderby arose, and refilling his pipe took me by the arm,
while my uncle got into his overcoat. As he passed us on the way out
he whispered in my ear:

“Talk about dogs.”

I heard and nodded.

Enderby led me to the lounge or loafing-room, an oak-paneled
apartment in the rear of the floor above, with huge leather chairs
and a seat in the bay window. Save for a gray-haired old chap dozing
over a copy of _Simplicissimus_, the room was deserted.

But no sooner had Enderby seated himself on the window-seat than
there was a rush and a commotion, and a short, glad bark, and
Nubbins, the steward’s bull-terrier, bounded in and landed at
Enderby’s side with canine expressions of great joy.

I reached forward to pat him, but he paid absolutely no attention to
me.

At last his wriggling subsided, and he settled down with his head on
Enderby’s knee, the picture of content. Then I recalled my uncle’s
parting injunction.

“Friend of yours?” I suggested.

Enderby smiled. “Yes,” he said, “we’re friends, I guess. And the
funny part of it is that he doesn’t pay any attention to any one
else except his master. They all act that way with me, dogs do.” And
he pulled Nubbins’s stubby ears.

“Natural attraction, I suppose,” said I.

“Yes, it is,” he answered, with the modest frankness of a big man.
“It’s a thing hard to explain, though there’s a sort of reason for
it in my case.”

I pushed toward him a little tobacco-laden teak-wood stand
hopefully. He refilled and lighted.

“It’s an extraordinary thing, even so,” he said, puffing. “Every dog
nowadays seems to look upon me as his long-lost master, but it
wasn’t always so. I hated dogs and they hated me.”

Not wishing to say “Really” or “Indeed” to this big, outdoor man, I
simply grunted my surprise.

“Yes, we were born enemies. More than that, I was afraid of dogs. A
little fuzzy toy dog, ambling up to me in a room full of company,
with his tail wagging, gave me the shudders. I couldn’t touch the
beast. And as for big dogs outdoors, I feared them like the plague.
I would go blocks out of my way to avoid one.

“I don’t remember being particularly cowardly about other things,
but I just couldn’t help this. It was in my blood, for some reason
or other. It was the bane of my existence. I couldn’t see what the
brutes were put into the world for, or how any one could have
anything to do with them.

“And the dogs reciprocated. They disliked and distrusted me. The
most docile old Brunos would growl and show their teeth when I came
near.”

“Did the change come suddenly?” I asked.

“Quite. It was in 1901. I accepted a commission from an importing
and trading company to go to the Philippines to do a little quiet
exploring, and spent four months in the sickly place. Then I got the
fever, and when I recovered I couldn’t get out of there too soon.

“I reached Manila just in time to see the mail steamer disappearing
around the point, and I was mad. There would be another in six days,
but I couldn’t wait. I was just crazy to get back home.

“I made inquiries and learned of an old tramp steamer, named the
_Old Squaw_, making ready to leave for Honolulu on the following day
with a cargo of hemp and stuff, and a bunch of Moros for some show
in the States, and I booked passage on that.

“She was the worst old tub you ever saw. I didn’t learn much about
her, but I verily believe her to have been a condemned excursion
boat. She wouldn’t have been allowed to run to Coney Island.

“She was battered and unpainted, and she wallowed horribly. I don’t
believe she could have reached Honolulu much before the next regular
boat, but I couldn’t wait, and I took her.

“I made myself as comfortable as possible, bribed the cook to insure
myself against starvation, and swung a hammock on the forward deck
as far as possible from the worst of the vile smells.

“But we hadn’t lost sight of Manila Bay when I discovered that there
was a dog aboard—and such a dog! I had never seen one that sent me
into such a panic as this one, and he had free range of the ship. A
Great Dane he was, named Gulliver, and he was the pride of the
captain’s rum-soaked heart.

“With all my fear, I realized he was a magnificent animal, but I
looked on him as a gigantic devil. Without exception, he was the
biggest dog I ever saw, and as muscular as a lion. He lacked some
points that show judges set store by, but he had the size and the
build.

“I have seen Vohl’s Vulcan and the Wurtemburg breed, but they were
fox-terriers compared with Gulliver. His tail was as big around as
my arm, and the cook lived in terror of his getting into the galley
and wagging it; and he had a mouth that looked to me like the crater
of Mauna Loa, and a voice that shook the planking when he spoke.

“I first caught sight of him appearing from behind a huge coil of
cordage in the stern. He stretched and yawned, and I nearly died of
fright.

“I caught up a belaying-pin, though little good that would have done
me. I think he saw me do it, and doubtless he set me down for an
enemy then and there.

“We were well out of the harbor, and there was no turning back, but
I would have given my right hand to be off that boat. I fully
expected him to eat me up, and I slept with that belaying-pin
sticking into my ribs in the hammock, and with my revolver loaded
and handy.

“Fortunately, Gulliver’s dislike for me took the form of sublime
contempt. He knew I was afraid of him, and he despised me for it. He
was a great pet with the captain and crew, and even the Moros
treated him with admiring respect when they were allowed on deck. I
couldn’t understand it. I would as soon have made a pet of a hungry
boa-constrictor.

“On the third day out the poor old boiler burst and the _Old Squaw_
caught fire. She was dry and rotten inside and she burned like
tinder. No attempt was made to extinguish the flames, which got into
the hemp in the hold in short order.

“The smoke was stifling, and in a jiffy all hands were struggling
with the boats. The Moros came tumbling up from below and added to
the confusion with their terrified yells.

“The davits were old and rusty, and the men were soon fighting among
themselves. One boat dropped stern foremost, filled, and sank
immediately, and the _Old Squaw_ herself was visibly settling.

“I saw there was no chance of getting away in the boats, and I
recalled a life-raft on the deck forward near my hammock. It was a
sort of catamaran—a double platform on a pair of hollow,
water-tight, cylindrical buoys. It wasn’t twenty feet long and about
half as broad, but it would have to do. I fancy it was a forgotten
relic of the old excursion-boat days.

“There was no time to lose, for the _Old Squaw_ was bound to sink
presently. Besides, I was aft with the rest, and the flames were
licking up the deck and running-gear in the waist of the boat.

“The galley, which was amidships near the engine-room, had received
the full force of the explosion, and the cook lay moaning in the lee
scuppers with a small water-cask thumping against his chest. I
couldn’t stop to help the man, but I did kick the cask away.

“It seemed to be nearly full, and it occurred to me that I should
need it. I glanced quickly around, and luckily found a tin of
biscuits that had also been blown out of the galley. I picked this
up, and rolling the cask of water ahead of me as rapidly as I could,
I made my way through the hot, stifling smoke to the bow of the
boat.

“I kicked at the life-raft; it seemed to be sound, and I lashed the
biscuits and water to it. I also threw on a coil of rope and a piece
of sail-cloth. I saw nothing else about that could possibly be of
any value to me. I abandoned my trunk for fear it would only prove
troublesome.

“Then I hacked the raft loose with my knife and shoved it over to
the bulwark. Apparently no one had seen me, for there was no one
else forward of the sheet of flame that now cut the boat in two.

“The raft was a mighty heavy affair, but I managed to raise one end
to the rail. I don’t believe I would ever have been able to heave it
over under any circumstances, but I didn’t have to.

“I felt a great upheaval, and the prow of the _Old Squaw_ went up
into the air. I grabbed the ropes that I had lashed the food on with
and clung to the raft. The deck became almost perpendicular, and it
was a miracle that the raft didn’t slide down with me into the
flames. Somehow it stuck where it was.

“Then the boat sank with a great roar, and for about a thousand
years, it seemed to me, I was under water. I didn’t do anything. I
couldn’t think.

“I was only conscious of a tremendous weight of water and a feeling
that I would burst open. Instinct alone made me cling to the raft.

“When it finally brought me to the surface I was as nearly dead as I
care to be. I lay there on the thing in a half-conscious condition
for an endless time. If my life had depended on my doing something,
I would have been lost.

“Then gradually I came to, and began to spit out salt water and gasp
for breath. I gathered my wits together and sat up. My hands were
absolutely numb, and I had to loosen the grip of my fingers with the
help of my toes. Odd sensation.

“Then I looked about me. My biscuits and water and rope were safe,
but the sail-cloth had vanished. I remember that this annoyed me
hugely at the time, though I don’t know what earthly good it would
have been.

“The sea was fairly calm, and I could see all about. Not a human
being was visible, only a few floating bits of wreckage. Every man
on board must have gone down with the ship and drowned, except
myself.

“Then I caught sight of something that made my heart stand still.
The huge head of Gulliver was coming rapidly toward me through the
water!

“The dog was swimming strongly, and must have leaped from the _Old
Squaw_ before she sank. My raft was the only thing afloat large
enough to hold him, and he knew it.

“I drew my revolver, but it was soaking wet and useless. Then I sat
down on the cracker-tin and gritted my teeth and waited. I had been
alarmed, I must admit, when the boiler blew up and the panic began,
but that was nothing to the terror that seized me now.

“Here I was all alone on the top of the Pacific Ocean with a
horrible demon making for me as fast as he could swim. My mind was
benumbed, and I could think of nothing to do. I trembled and my
teeth rattled. I prayed for a shark, but no shark came.

“Soon Gulliver reached the raft and placed one of his forepaws on it
and then the other. The top of it stood six or eight inches above
the water, and it took a great effort for the dog to raise himself.
I wanted to kick him back, but I didn’t dare to move.

“Gulliver struggled mightily. Again and again he reared his great
shoulders above the sea, only to be cast back, scratching and
kicking, at a lurch of the raft.

“Finally a wave favored him, and he caught the edge of the under
platform with one of his hind feet. With a stupendous effort he
heaved his huge bulk over the edge and lay sprawling at my feet,
panting and trembling.”

Enderby paused and gazed out of the window with a big sigh, as
though the recital of his story had brought back some of the horror
of his remarkable experience.

Nubbins looked up inquiringly, and then snuggled closer to his
friend, while Enderby smoothed the white head.

“Well,” he continued, “there we were. You can’t possibly imagine how
I felt unless you, too, have been afflicted with dog-fear. It was
awful. And I hated the brute so. I could have torn him limb from
limb if I had had the strength. But he was vastly more powerful than
I. I could only fear him.

“By and by he got up and shook himself. I cowered on my cracker-tin,
but he only looked at me contemptuously, went to the other end of
the raft, and lay down to wait patiently for deliverance.

“We remained this way until nightfall. The sea was comparatively
calm, and we seemed to be drifting but slowly. We were in the path
of ships likely to be passing one way or the other, and I would have
been hopeful of the outcome if it had not been for my feared and
hated companion.

“I began to feel faint, and opened the cracker-tin. The biscuits
were wet with salt water, but I ate a couple, and left the cover of
the tin open to dry them. Gulliver looked around, and I shut the tin
hastily. But the dog never moved. He was not disposed to ask any
favors. By kicking the sides of the cask and prying with my knife, I
managed to get the bung out and took a drink. Then I settled myself
on the raft with my back against the cask, and longed for a smoke.

“The gentle motion of the raft produced a lulling effect on my
exhausted nerves, and I began to nod, only to awake with a start,
with fear gripping at my heart. I dared not sleep. I don’t know what
I thought Gulliver would do to me, for I did not understand dogs,
but I felt that I must watch him constantly. In the starlight I
could see that his eyes were open. Gulliver was watchful too.

“All night long I kept up a running fight with drowsiness. I dozed
at intervals, but never for long at a time. It was a horrible night,
and I cannot tell you how I longed for day and welcomed it when it
came.

“I must have slept toward dawn, for I suddenly became conscious of
broad daylight. I roused myself, stood up, and swung my arms and
legs to stir up circulation, for the night had been chilly. Gulliver
arose, too, and stood silently watching me until I ceased for fear.
When he had settled down again I got my breakfast out of the
cracker-tin. Gulliver was restless, and was evidently interested.

“‘He must be hungry,’ I thought, and then a new fear caught me. I
had only to wait until he became very hungry and then he would
surely attack me. I concluded that it would be wiser to feed him,
and I tossed him a biscuit.

“I expected to see him grab it ravenously, and wondered as soon as I
had thrown it if the taste of food would only serve to make him more
ferocious. But at first he would not touch it. He only lay there
with his great head on his paws and glowered at me. Distrust was
plainly visible in his face. I had never realized before that a
dog’s face could express the subtler emotions.

“His gaze fascinated me, and I could not take my eyes from his. The
bulk of him was tremendous as he lay there, and I noticed the big,
swelling muscles of his jaw. At last he arose, sniffed suspiciously
at the biscuit, and looked up at me again.

“‘It’s all right; eat it!’ I cried.

“The sound of my own voice frightened me. I had not intended to
speak to him. But in spite of my strained tone he seemed somewhat
reassured.

“He took a little nibble, and then swallowed the biscuit after one
or two crunches, and looked up expectantly. I threw him another and
he ate that.

“‘That’s all,’ said I. ‘We must be sparing of them.’

“I was amazed to discover how perfectly he understood. He lay down
again and licked his chops.

“Late in the forenoon I saw a line of smoke on the horizon, and soon
a steamer hove into view. I stood up and waved my coat frantically,
but to no purpose. Gulliver stood up and looked from me to the
steamer, apparently much interested.

“‘Too far off,’ I said to Gulliver. ‘I hope the next one will come
nearer.’

“At midday I dined, and fed Gulliver. This time he took the two
biscuits quite without reserve and whacked his great tail against
the raft. It seemed to me that his attitude was less hostile, and I
wondered at it.

“When I took my drink from the cask, Gulliver showed signs of
interest.

“‘I suppose dogs get thirsty, too,’ I said aloud.

“Gulliver rapped with his tail. I looked about for some sort of
receptacle, and finally pulled off my shoe, filled it with water,
and shoved it toward him with my foot. He drank gratefully.

“During the afternoon I sighted another ship, but it was too distant
to notice me. However, the sea remained calm and I did not despair.

“After we had had supper, I settled back against my cask, resolved
to keep awake, for still I did not trust Gulliver. The sun set
suddenly and the stars came out, and I found myself strangely
lonesome. It seemed as though I had been alone out there on the
Pacific for weeks. The miles and miles of heaving waters, almost on
a level with my eye, were beginning to get on my nerves. I longed
for some one to talk to, and wished I had dragged the half-breed
cook along with me for company. I sighed loudly, and Gulliver raised
his head.

“‘Lonesome out here, isn’t it?’ I said, simply to hear the sound of
my own voice.

“Then for the first time Gulliver spoke. He made a deep sound in his
throat, but it wasn’t a growl, and with all my ignorance of dog
language I knew it.

“Then I began to talk. I talked about everything—the people back
home and all that—and Gulliver listened. I know more about dogs now,
and I know that the best way to make friends with a dog is to talk
to him. He can’t talk back, but he can understand a heap more than
you think he can.

“Finally Gulliver, who had kept his distance all this time, arose
and came toward me. My words died in my throat. What was he going to
do? To my immense relief he did nothing but sink down at my feet
with a grunt and curl his huge body into a semicircle. He had
dignity, Gulliver had. He wanted to be friendly, but he would not
presume. However, I had lost interest in conversation, and sat
watching him and wondering.

“In spite of my firm resolution, I fell asleep at length from sheer
exhaustion, and never woke until daybreak. The sky was clouded and
our craft was pitching. Gulliver was standing in the middle of the
raft, looking at me in evident alarm. I glanced over my shoulder,
and the blackness of the horizon told me that a storm was coming,
and coming soon.

“I made fast our slender provender, tied the end of a line about my
own waist for safety, and waited.

“In a short time the storm struck us in all its tropical fury. The
raft pitched and tossed, now high up at one end, and now at the
other, and sometimes almost engulfed in the waves.

“Gulliver was having a desperate time to keep aboard. His blunt
claws slipped on the wet deck of the raft, and he fell and slid
about dangerously. The thought flashed across my mind that the storm
might prove to be a blessing in disguise, and that I might soon be
rid of the brute.

“As I clung there to the lashings, I saw him slip down to the
further end of the raft, his hind quarters actually over the edge. A
wave swept over him, but still he clung, panting madly. Then the
raft righted itself for a moment, and as he hung there he gave me a
look I shall never forget—a look of fear, of pleading, of reproach,
and yet of silent courage. And with all my stupidity I read that
look. Somehow it told me that I was the master, after all, and he
the dog. I could not resist it. Cautiously I raised myself and
loosened the spare rope I had saved. As the raft tipped the other
way Gulliver regained his footing and came sliding toward me.

“Quickly I passed the rope around his body, and as the raft dived
again I hung on to the rope with one hand, retaining my own hold
with the other. Gulliver’s great weight nearly pulled my arm from
its socket, but he helped mightily, and during the next moment of
equilibrium I took another turn about his body and made the end of
the rope fast.

“The storm passed as swiftly as it had come, and though it left us
drenched and exhausted, we were both safe.

Again and again Gulliver gave voice, deep, full, powerful
]

“That evening Gulliver crept close to me as I talked, and I let him.
Loneliness will make a man do strange things.

“On the fifth day, when our provisions were nearly gone, and I had
begun to feel the sinking dullness of despair, I sighted a steamer
apparently coming directly toward us. Instantly I felt new life in
my limbs and around my heart, and while the boat was yet miles away
I began to shout and to wave my coat.

“‘I believe she’s coming, old man!’ I cried to Gulliver; ‘I believe
she’s coming!’

“I soon wearied of this foolishness and sat down to wait. Gulliver
came close and sat beside me, and for the first time I put my hand
on him. He looked up at me and rapped furiously with his tail. I
patted his head—a little gingerly, I must confess.

“It was a big, smooth head, and it felt solid and strong. I passed
my hand down his neck, his back, his flanks. He seemed to quiver
with joy. He leaned his huge body against me. Then he bowed his head
and licked my shoe.

“A feeling of intense shame and unworthiness came over me, with the
realization of how completely I had misunderstood him. Why should
this great, powerful creature lick my shoe? It was incredible.

“Then, somehow, everything changed. Fear and distrust left me, and a
feeling of comradeship and understanding took their place. We two
had been through so much together. A dog was no longer a frightful
beast to me; he was a dog! I cannot think of a nobler word. And
Gulliver had licked my shoe! Doubtless it was only the fineness of
his perception that had prevented him from licking my hand. I might
have resented that. I put my arms suddenly around Gulliver’s neck
and hugged him. I loved that dog!

“Slowly, slowly, the steamer crawled along, but still she kept to
her course. When she was about a mile away, however, I saw that she
would not pass as near to us as I had hoped; so I began once more my
waving and yelling. She came nearer, nearer, but still showed no
sign of observing us.

“She was abreast of us and passing. I was in a frenzy!

“She was so near that I could make out the figure of the captain on
the bridge, and other figures on the deck below. It seemed as though
they must see us, though I realized how low in the water we stood,
and how pitifully weak and hoarse my voice was. I had been a fool to
waste it. Then an idea struck me.

“‘Speak!’ I cried to Gulliver, who stood watching beside me. ‘Speak,
old man!’

“Gulliver needed no second bidding. A roar like that of all the
bulls of Bashan rolled out over the blue Pacific. Again and again
Gulliver gave voice, deep, full, powerful. His great sides heaved
with the mighty effort, his red, cavernous mouth open, and his head
raised high.

“‘Good, old man!’ I cried. ‘Good!’ And again that magnificent voice
boomed forth.

“Then something happened on board the steamer. The figures came to
the side. I waved my coat and danced. Then they saw us.

“I was pretty well done up when they took us aboard, and I slept for
twenty-four hours straight. When I awoke there sat Gulliver by my
bunk, and when I turned to look at him he lifted a great paw and put
it on my arm.”

Enderby ceased, and there was silence in the room save for the light
snoring of Nubbins.

“You took him home with you, I suppose?” I asked.

Enderby nodded.

“And you have him still?” I certainly wanted to have a look at that
dog.

But he did not answer. I saw an expression of great sadness come
into his eyes as he gazed out of the window, and I knew that Jacob
Enderby had finished his story.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SONNY’S SCHOOLIN’
By RUTH McENERY STUART

A Monologue

WELL, sir, we’re tryin’ to edjercate him—good ez we can. Th’ ain’t
never been a edjercational advantage come in reach of us but we’ve
give it to him. Of co’se he’s all we’ve got, that one boy is, an’
wife an’ me, why, we feel the same way about it.

They’s three schools in the county, an’ we send him to all three.

Sir? Oh, yas, sir; he b’longs to all three schools—to _fo’_, for
that matter, countin’ the home school.

You see, Sonny he’s purty ticklish to handle, an’ a person has to
know thess how to tackle him. Even wife an’ me, thet’s been knowin’
him f’om the beginnin’, not only knowin’ his traits, but how he
_come_ by ’em,—though some is hard to trace to their so’ces,—why,
sir, even we have to study sometimes to keep in with him, an’ of
co’se a teacher—why, it’s thess hit an’ miss whether he’ll take the
right tack with him or not; an’ sometimes one teacher’ll strike it
one day, an’ another nex’ day; so by payin’ schoolin’ for him right
along in all three, why, of co’se, ef he don’t feel like goin’ to
one, why, he’ll go to another.