It was after dinner, an April evening, and Gissing slipped away from the house for a stroll.He was afraid to stay in, because he knew that if he did, Fuji would ask him again to fix the dishcloth rack in the kitchen.Fuji was very short in stature, and could not reach up to the place where the rack was screwed over the sink.Like all people whose minds are very active, Gissing hated to attend to little details like this.It was a weakness in his character.Fuji had asked him six times to fix the rack, but Gissing always pretended to forget about it.To appease his methodical butler he had written on a piece of paper FIX DISHCLOTH RACK and pinned it on his dressing-table pincushion; but he paid no attention to the memorandum.
He went out into a green April dusk.Down by the pond piped those repeated treble whistlings: they still distressed him with a mysterious unriddled summons, but Mike Terrier had told him that the secret of respectability is to ignore whatever you don't understand.Careful observation of this maxim had somewhat dulled the cry of that shrill queer music.It now caused only a faint pain in his mind.Still, he walked that way because the little meadow by the pond was agreeably soft underfoot.Also, when he walked close beside the water the voices were silent.That is worth noting, he said to himself.If you go directly at the heart of a mystery, it ceases to be a mystery, and becomes only a question of drainage.(Mr.Poodle had told him that if he had the pond and swamp drained, the frog-song would not annoy him.) But to-night, when the keen chirruping ceased, there was still another sound that did not cease--a faint, appealing cry.It caused a prickling on his shoulder blades, it made him both angry and tender.He pushed through the bushes.In a little hollow were three small puppies, whining faintly.They were cold and draggled with mud.Someone had left them there, evidently, to perish.They were huddled close together; their eyes, a cloudy unspeculative blue, were only just opened."This is gruesome," said Gissing, pretending to be shocked."Dear me, innocent pledges of sin, I dare say.Well, there is only one thing to do."He picked them up carefully and carried them home.
"Quick, Fuji!" he said."Warm some milk, some of the Grade A, and put a little brandy in it.I'll get the spare-room bed ready."He rushed upstairs, wrapped the puppies in a blanket, and turned on the electric heater to take the chill from the spare-room.The little pads of their paws were ice-cold, and he filled the hot water bottle and held it carefully to their twelve feet.Their pink stomachs throbbed, and at first he feared they were dying."They must not die!" he said fiercely."If they did, it would be a matter for the police, and no end of trouble."Fuji came up with the milk, and looked very grave when he saw the muddy footprints on the clean sheet.
"Now, Fuji," said Gissing, "do you suppose they can lap, or will we have to pour it down?"In spite of his superior manner, Fuji was a good fellow in an emergency.It was he who suggested the fountain-pen filler.They washed the ink out of it, and used it to drip the hot brandy-and-milk down the puppies' throats.Their noses, which had been icy, suddenly became very hot and dry.Gissing feared a fever and thought their temperatures should be taken.
"The only thermometer we have," he said, "is the one on the porch, with the mercury split in two.I don't suppose that would do.Have you a clinical thermometer, Fuji?"Fuji felt that his employer was making too much fuss over the matter."No, sir," he said firmly."They are quite all right.A good sleep willrevive them.They will be as fit as possible in the morning."Fuji went out into the garden to brush the mud from his neat white jacket.His face was inscrutable.Gissing sat by the spare-room bed until he was sure the puppies were sleeping correctly.He closed the door so that Fuji would not hear him humming a lullaby.Three Blind Mice was the only nursery song he could remember, and he sang it over and over again.When he tiptoed downstairs, Fuji had gone to bed.Gissing went into his study, lit a pipe, and walked up and down, thinking.By and bye he wrote two letters.One eras to a bookseller in the city, asking him to send (at once) one copy of Dr.Holt's book on the Care and Feeding of Children,and a well-illustrated edition of Mother Goose.The other was to Mr.Poodle, asking him to fix a date for the christening of Mr.Gissing's three small nephews, who had come to live with him.
"It is lucky they are all boys," said Gissing."I would know nothing about bringing up girls.""I suppose," he added after a while, "that I shall have to raise Fuji's wages."Then he went into the kitchen and fixed the dishcloth rack.
Before going to bed that night he took his usual walk around the house.The sky was freckled with stars.It was generally his habit to make a tour of his property toward midnight, to be sure everything was in good order.He always looked into the ice-box, and admired the cleanliness of Fuji's arrangements.The milk bottles were properly capped with their round cardboard tops; the cheese was never put on the same rack with the butter; the doors of the ice-box were carefully latched.Such observations, and the slow twinkle of the fire in the range, deep down under the curfew layer of coals, pleased him.In the cellar he peeped into the garbage can, for it was always a satisfaction to assure himself that Fuji did not waste anything that could be used.One of the laundry tub taps was dripping, with a soft measured tinkle: he said to himself that he really must have it attended to.All these domestic matters seemed more significant than ever when he thought of youthful innocence sleeping upstairs in the spare-room bed.His had been a selfish life hitherto, he feared.These puppies were just what he needed to take him out of himself.
