My Doggie and I | Page 6

cannot tell. It is not long--"
"Here, Punch, come here!" called the boy, interrupting.
At the name of Punch my doggie became so demonstrative in his affections that he all but leaped into the boy's arms, whined lovingly, and licked his dirty face all over.
"The wery dog," said the boy, after looking at his nose; "only growed so big that his own mother wouldn't know 'im.--Vy, where 'ave you bin all this long while, Punch?"
"D'you mean to say that you know the dog, and that his name is Punch?"
"Vell, you are green. Wouldn't any cove with half an eye see that the dog knows me, an' so, in course, I must know him? An' ven I called 'im Punch didn't he answer?--hey?"
I was obliged to admit the truth of these remarks. After the first ebullition of joy at the meeting was over, we went along the street together.
"Then the dog is yours?" said I as we went along.
"No, he ain't mine. He was mine once--ven he was a pup, but I sold 'im to a young lady for--a wery small sum."
"For how much?" I asked.
"For five bob. Yes--on'y five bob! I axed vun pound, but the young lady was so pleasant an' pritty that I come down to ten bob. Then she said she was poor--and to tell 'ee the plain truth she looked like it-- an' she wanted the pup so bad that I come down to five."
"And who was this young lady?"
"Blow'd if I knows. She went off wi' my Punch, an' I never saw'd 'em more."
"Then you don't know what induced her to sell Punch to a low fellow--but of course you know nothing about that," said I, in a musing tone, as I thought of the strange manner in which this portion of my doggie's history had come to light, but I was recalled from my reverie by the contemptuous tones of my little companion's voice, as he said--
"But I do know something about that."
"Oh, indeed! I thought you said you never saw the young lady again."
"No more I did. Neither did I ever see Punch again till to-day, but I know for certain that my young lady never sold no dog wotsomedever to no low feller as ever walked in shoe leather or out of it!"
"Ah, I see," said I slowly, "you mean--"
"Yes, out with it, that's just wot I do mean--that the low feller prigged the pup from her, an' I on'y vish as I 'ad a grip of his ugly nose, and I'd draw it out from his uglier face, I would, like the small end of a telescope, and then shut it up flat again--so flat that you'd never know he'd had no nose at all!"
My little sharp-witted companion then willingly gave me an account of all he knew about the early history of my doggie.
The story was not long, but it began, so to speak, at the beginning.
Punch, or Dumps, as I continued to call him, had been born in a dry water-butt which stood in a back yard near the Thames. This yard was, or had been, used for putting away lumber.
"It was a queer place," said my little companion, looking up in my face with a droll expression--"a sort o' place that, when once you had gone into it, you was sure to wish you hadn't. Talk o' the blues, sir; I do assure you that w'en I used to go into that yard of a night it gave me the black-an'-blues, it did. There was a mouldiness an' a soppiness about it that beat the katticombs all to sticks. It looked like a place that some rubbish had bin flung into in the days before Adam an' Eve was born, an' 'ad been forgotten tee-totally from that time to this. Oh, it was awful! Used to make my marrow screw up into lumps w'en I was used to go there."
"But why did you go there at all if you disliked it so much?" I asked.
"Vy? because I 'adn't got no better place to go to. I was used to sleep there. I slep' in the self-same water-butt where Punch was born. That's 'ow I come to scrape acquaintance with 'im. I'd bin away from 'ome in the country for a week's slidin'."
"A week's what?"
"Slidin'. Don't you know what sliding on the ice is?"
"Oh!--yes. Are you very fund of that?"
"I should think I was--w'en my boots are good enough to stick on, but they ain't always that, and then I've got to slide under difficulties. Sometimes I'm out o' boots an' shoes altogether, in vich case slidin's impossible; but I can look on and slide in spirit, vich is better than nuffin'. But, as I was sayin' w'en you 'ad the bad manners to interrupt me, I 'ad bin away from