"
"Oh!" said Sam, "then I thinks you'll be sucked in! The chances are,
Mr. Orkins, you won't see him at all. Why, sir, you don't know how
them chaps carries on their business. Would you believe it, Mr.
Orkins, a gennelman comes to me, and he ses, 'Sam,' he ses, 'I want to
find a little pet dawg as belonged to a lidy'--which was his wife, in
course--and he ses the lidy was nearly out of her mind. 'Well,' I ses,
'sir, to be 'onest with you, don't you mention that there fact to
anybody but me'--because when a lidy goes out of her mind over a lorst
dawg up goes the price, and you can't calculate bank-rate, as they
ses. The price'll go up fablous, Mr. Orkins; there's nothin' rules the
market like that there. Well, at last I agrees to do my best for the
gent, and he says, just as you might say, Mr. Orkins, just now, 'When
can she have him?' Well, I told him the time; but what a innercent
question, Mr. Orkins! 'Why not before?' says he, with a kind of a
angry voice, like yours just now, sir. 'Why, sir,' I ses, 'these
people as finds dawgs 'ave their feelins as well as losers 'as theirs,
and sometimes when they can't find the owner, they sells the animal.'
Well, they sold this gennelman's animal to a major, and the reason why
he couldn't be had for a little while was that the major, being fond
on him, and 'avin' paid a good price for the dawg, it would ha' been
cruel if he did not let him have the pleasure of him like for a few
days--or a week.
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