The Sea View disappointment being so keenly felt, Mrs.Avory decided to give the children an extra holiday of a fortnight at once, in which to taste the delights of the caravan, and meanwhile she would herself go down to the Isle of Wight to try to find other rooms; and it was arranged that Mary Rotheram and one of her brothers and Horace Campbell should be squeezed into the party too.Jack and William Rotheram therefore tossed up for it, and Jack won.
This suddenness, as we shall see, was very fortunate, but it threw Mr.
Lenox into a state of perspiration quite strange to him.
"My dear Jenny," he said to Mrs.Avory, "how am I to get a horse to do you credit, if you hurry me so? A horse is an animal requiring the most careful study.Each one of its four legs needs separate consideration.I should have liked some weeks of thought.The dog, too.Just as there is only one satisfactory horse in the world for each family, so is there only one satisfactory dog; and you ask me to get both in a few minutes."He lay back and fanned himself.
Then he pulled two pennies from his pocket and gave them to Gregory, and told him to go to the station bookstall and bring back the _Exchange_ and _Mart._The _Exchange_ and _Mart,_ as perhaps you may not know, is, without any exaggeration, the most delightful paper in the world.It contains nothing that one dislikes to read about, such as accidents, murders, suicides, politics, and criticisms of concerts; it contains nothing whatever of such things, while, on the other hand, it is packed with matters of real interest.It tells you who has dogs for sale, and rabbits for sale, and magic-lanterns for sale, and cameras for sale, and bicycles for sale, and guinea-pigs for sale,--all at a bargain,--and it tells you also who wants to buy rabbits and cameras and guinea-pigs; and it also tells you who wants to exchange rabbits for a gun, or a dog for a fishing-rod, or a gramophone for a parrot.
Gregory brought the paper back, and Mr.Lenox at once turned to the section entitled "The Kennel," and then to the subsection "Retrievers," and he found the names of three persons who wished to sell wonderful specimens of that breed.
Two were in London and one was at Harrow.
Gregory therefore went off to find a taxicab (no easy thing at Chiswick), and, coming back with one at last, Mr.Lenox and he drove to the nearest of the London addresses.
The first was no good at all.The retrievers were all puppies, so gentle and playful that they would not have frightened even a mouse from the caravan door.But the next, which was at Bermondsey, was better.Here, in a small backyard, they found Mr.Amos, the advertiser, surrounded by kennels.
He was a little man with a squint, and he declared that he had nothing but the best-bred dogs with the longest pedigrees.
"But we don't want anything so swagger as that," said Mr.Lenox.
"We want a watchdog to be kept on a chain, but friendly enough with his own people.If you keep only pedigree dogs, we may as well get on to our next address."Mr.Amos stepped between Mr.Lenox and the door."It's most extraordinary odd," he said, " for, although I make it almost a religion never to have any but pedigree dogs, it happens that just at this very moment I have got, for the first time in my whole career, an inferior animal.It's not mine.
Oh, no; I'm only taking care of it for a friend.But it's a retriever all right, and a good one, mark you, though not a pedigree dog.My friend wants a good home for it.He's very particular about that.Kind, nice people, you know.Bones.I dare say you know him," Mr.Amos added: "Mr.Bateman, who keeps the Bricklayers' Arms."How funny, Gregory thought, to keep bricklayers' arms! And he wondered why the bricklayers didn't keep their own arms, and who kept their legs, and he might have asked if Mr.Amos had not called to a boy named Jim to "bring Tartar over here, and look slippy."While Jim was bringing Tartar,--who lived in a tub, and must therefore, Mr.
