"Gratitude be blowed!" said the young man cheerfully. "It was no trouble to me, and I happened to be there."
"Well, sir," said Smith, "will you let me give you a dog? I've got some very good dogs. I should take it as a favour if you would."
He took from a Russia leather case a clean professional card, and presented it to the young man.
"That, of course, is not my real name. That's just the French name they've put on the programmes. I'm James Smith, and I have a two weeks' engagement at the Hippodrome here. I've got my dogs in a stable not far from there."
"Well," he said, "I've got nothing to do this morning, I'll go and have a look at the dogs, at any rate. They're a pretty clever lot, I suppose."
"They can do what they've been taught," said Smith; "all except one of them, and he can do what no man can teach him."
There was a great noise when they entered the stables. Twenty dogs, most of them black poodles, all tried to talk at once. Smith said something decisively, but quietly, and the dogs became silent again. Smith made a sign to one of the poodles and held out his walking-stick. It looked quite impossible, but the dog went over it.
"My word, but that's a wonderful jump!" said the young man.
"It is," said Smith. "You won't find another dog of that breed in this country that can do the same. He's yours, if you like to take him."
"No; hang it all! I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to take a dog which you can use professionally. What about the beggar that you said you could not teach?"
Smith pointed to a huge brindled bulldog, who lay in one corner of the stable absolutely motionless, watching them intently.
"That's the one," lie said. "He's never been on the stage at all. He couldn't even be taught to fetch and carry."
"And you just keep him because you're fond of him?"
"Fond of him? No, I'm not fond of dogs. They're my livelihood, and I don't do so badly out of it. But I'm not fond of 'em--know too much about 'em."
"You may call it a sense of justice, or you may call it curiosity. He's a rum 'un, that dog is, and no mistake."
"I'll tell you. He's a dog that sees dangers ahead. He knows when things are going to happen. I had him as a puppy, and when I found I could teach him nothing, I made up my mind to get quit of him. I was going off by train that day to a village fifteen miles away, and I knew a man there who I thought might take a fancy to Zero."