Chapter 04 My New Master

CHAPTER IV
MY NEW MASTER
Ijumped up on the window-seat and looked about me. Some men have comforts, some don’t. This man had a beautiful room overlooking the river, with a nice, white bath-room off it. He splashed and tumbled about in the water, then he dressed himself, and all the while he examined me.
I licked a few stray hairs in place, and took some mud off my paws with my tongue, to let him see I was as clean in my ways as he was. I knew he would not associate with me if I was a dirty dog.
“Boy,” he said at last, “I like you; do you like me?”
I stood up straight, and put my two front paws as far up on his chest as they would go. I loved him. He was handsome, intellectual and unhappy.
Not that he looked unhappy. He had rather an amused face, but we dogs see below the surface.
“Suppose you stay here till breakfast is over,” he remarked. “No use in bringing on scenes. You’re not hungry, are you?”
I shook my head, and curled up on the window seat. He went away, and stayed a short time. I smelt coffee and steak somewhere near, but I never budged, and after a while he came back.
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“Suppose you go down town with me, dog,” he said. “The probability is that you would not spend a very interesting morning with Madame and Beanie.”
He grinned and I grinned, then at last he walked boldly out with me at his heels.
We met the lady in the hall, looking perfectly stunning in some kind of a light coloured morning-gown. Dogs don’t have much of an eye for colour. In fact, most of us are colour blind.
“Rudolph,” she screamed, “didn’t you turn that ugly dog out?”
He looked over his shoulder. “Oh! he’s still there, is he? Likely he’ll leave me down town, and run home. Au revoir, dearie. Don’t over-exert.”
She bent her cheek and he pecked at it, then he went downstairs, and there at the door was such a jolly, seven-seated motor car. Not a limousine, thank fortune. I hate to drive in a glass box.
The man ran his own car, and I sat between him and the chauffeur. Oh! what fun. We went flying down Riverside Drive, till we couldn’t fly any longer, and we had to turn into Seventy-Second Street and go soberly. Finally we got away down town. So my new master was a business man.
“What will you do?” he said when we at last pulled up before a sky-scraper. “Go to the garage with Louis, or come with me?”
As if there was any comparison between him and Louis! I snuggled close to his smart-looking shoes and silk socks, and together we went in and up, up to a suite of offices where young men, elderly men, stenographers[49] and messengers hummed, and buzzed, and worked, and talked till one o’clock.
I lay under the swivel chair in my new master’s inner office, and enjoyed it all. I love to see human beings working hard.
At one o’clock my master rose, and leaving this hive of industry behind him, went out for lunch.
I have had training enough for ten dogs, and my new master guessed it. He never looked behind, and I never looked before. I kept my muzzle at his shoe heels, and we passed leisurely through the swarms of bees from other hives that were buzzing through halls and in elevators. All were after honey, and we found a particularly agreeable place for ours.
To my astonishment, when our turn came to enter an elevator, we did not go down to the street, but up to the top of the high building we were in. What a surprise awaited me there. I knew there were restaurants and roof gardens in New York, but I had never been in one. I had been in a nice restaurant in San Francisco at the top of a big building, and I was there on the day of a slight earthquake when the whole body of waiters, who wore mustaches, rushed down to the street, shaved their mustaches off, and went back to a famous club from which they had been discharged because they would wear those same mustaches.
Well, something very fine awaited us at the top of this New York building. We stepped out of the elevator, went through a door, and there we were on top of the enormous sky-scraper, and spread out before[50] us was a view of wonderful New York, less wonderful Brooklyn, the Jersey coast, and the magnificent bay and islands.
Master had allowed me to jump on a chair so I could look about me, for dogs, unless they stand high, often lose a view that a human being can enjoy.
I was enchanted, but the wind blew so hard that I was glad to jump down, and follow my new master into a protected place. Here were tables, chairs, mirrors—a regular, attractive and pretty restaurant, better than any we would find on the street in this down town district. It was enclosed by glass, and from nearly all the seats, one could enjoy the same magnificent view that one had outside.
My master did not stay in this eating-place, which I learned afterward was for all the people in the building. He passed through a long corridor, went down some steps, along a covered walk—all this was glassed in—and to the top of a lower building. Indeed, it seemed to me that we were passing over the tops of many buildings and I found out afterward that this was correct. Mr. Granton—for this was my master’s name—and some other men had acquired the right to build on the tops of the sky-scrapers, and here they had an agreeable promenade in fresh air, and away from the dust of the street. At last we entered a pretty little café, furnished in Louis something-or-other style. Well, attached to this dainty little café with its mirrors, and spindle-legged tables and chairs, was a tiny, formal rose garden with real flowers and gravel walks.
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The whole thing reminded me of Paris, and I soon found out that it was a French restaurant, and that my master, who had been partly educated in France, loved the French people.
He had his lunch at a small table by himself, drawn up close to the entrance of the garden, and I sat under his chair, and inhaled the perfume of the roses, and gazed at the pretty thing with ecstasy. It was enclosed by lattice work entwined with green leaves, and all round the lattice work ran a deep bed of flowering roses. On looking closely, I found that they were in pots sunk in trenches. However, the effect was of a regular out-of-door flowering garden. In the middle was a round bed with a pink rambler climbing round a sun-dial. In one corner was a baby pergola with another climber embracing it, and at the top of the pergola a tiny little bird-box, out of which frequently stepped a wee yellow canary. He had a box of seeds fastened to the pergola, and when he wanted a drink, he went to a tiny fountain in one corner of the garden.
While my master was eating, this little bird sang to him, but did not offer to come near him. It was not afraid of him, for Mr. Canary regarded the garden as his home. Neither was he afraid of me, knowing he had wings, and then, though he was only a mite of a creature, he knew my attitude was not threatening.
He had a little mate among the roses, but she did not come out—merely peeped at us.
Master had rather a dainty lunch for such a big man. Mine was dainty too—a little too dainty for a medium-sized dog—for Monsieur Canovel, who ran[52] the café, had a Frenchman’s frugal ways. However, the garçon sneaked me a few extras. These foreigners that come round, smirking and bowing, and hoping that everything is to monsieur’s liking, are really not as satisfactory as Americans, who apparently scarcely glance at their patrons, yet if a prominent one brings in a dog, say, “Waiter, give him a plateful.”
I love to run over the names of things to eat. Even the sound is appetising, so I will say that master had bouillon and vegetables served separately, and then French stew, and a dish which smelt like those delicious things made of hard crusts of bread, which poor children pick out of the gutters in Paris and sell to the restaurants, where they are washed and ground and made into little pies.
Nobody saves crusts in this country. We Americans, dogs and human beings, are too extravagant. A French dog could live on the discards from my table.
After master had his lunch, he strolled about the gravelled walks of the tiny garden that was not much bigger than Gringo’s yard, for only twenty-five men use this pretty place. He did not smoke, he whistled to the canary, who knew him, and got angry when master picked a rose from his pergola and put it in his buttonhole.
After a while, a gentleman who had been lunching at a table near us came over to my master, and began to talk about his arcade scheme, which I soon found out was a plan to lessen the crowds on the streets of New York, by building arcades like those on the[53] Rue de Rivoli in Paris, except that the top would be flat, so the people could walk on them too.
“It would give a double row of store-fronts,” said my master’s friend, “and increase the value of second story property. How much will you put in, Granton?”
Master said he would consider it.
“In addition,” went on his friend, “I have a plan to force the owners of apartment-houses to build kennels and runways on the tops of their houses, so that dogs owned by tenants, can be exercised there, instead of in the street, where they have to wear muzzles.”
Master smiled, and said, “That’s more in my line. Let me know when you want to get that law passed,” then he nodded good-bye to his friend, and we sauntered back along the roofs to the elevator, and descended to our hive.
He worked with the other bees till five, when we swarmed to the street. There was Louis with the car. I jumped up beside master, and we wended our way uptown to Madame.
I gathered from Mr. Granton’s remarks that he took her out nearly every day. On arriving before the apartment-house, he murmured, “Suppose you get under Louis’ lap-robe.” Then he added, “No—we might as well have it out first as last.”
When Madame came out with Beanie toddling after her, she stopped, and gave a squeal at sight of me.
“Rudolph, didn’t that ugly thing leave you?”
I bridled—I’m doggy in appearance, still I’m not ugly—I’m distinguished. One of the garçons at the French restaurant said I looked like a chien de race[54] and he was more right than he knew. “Clossie,” said my master, “I like this dog.”
“I can’t help that,” she said in her trailing voice. “I know he’ll kill my darling boy.”
At sight of his wife, my master had jumped from the car and stood on the sidewalk.
“Permit me,” he said, and leaning across her he took young Fatty Beans and put him on the seat beside me.
The lady gave a shriek, and covered her eyes with her little white gloves.
When she looked up, young Beans sat beside me, straight as a major. I had hissed in his ear, “If you don’t pretend to like me, I’ll knock the stuffing out of you, first chance I get.”
The young fellow didn’t want to get unstuffed, so he turned to his mistress with a sickly grin.
“Why, darling,” she said slowly, “I believe you like him. Was he lonely doggie by his own seffies?”
He hadn’t been a lonely doggie by his own “seffies,” but he was too frightened to tell her so, and if he had, she didn’t possess enough knowledge of dogs to understand him.
With a wondering face, Madame stepped in beside her husband who had taken his old place.
“Now what about the dogs?” she asked. “I was planning to take Beanie in here with me as usual, but perhaps he’d rather sit with his new friend.”
“By all means,” said her husband hastily. “Let them both go with Louis.”
Louis was a splendidly trained servant. When[55] Madame talked dog-talk he was convulsed with inward laughter, but he showed no outward trace except by a tremor of the eyelid. But when he got with other chauffeurs—ma foi! You’d die laughing to hear him imitate her—but he liked Mrs. Granton all the time. I found out that later.
After a time, we set out. Madame and Monsieur in front, Louis and dogs behind.
Louis liked me, but he used to pinch Beans slyly. Poor Beanie, he didn’t enjoy that first drive.
I was dying to know some friends of my new family. Fortunately we met one who was walking down the Drive with a collie dog at her heels. Oh! what a keen, intelligent Scottish face he had, and hers was just as keen and intelligent an American face.
My master stopped the car, and his wife called out, “Why, how do you do, Stanna—want to have a spin with us?”
Miss Stanna, all laughing and rosy in her black furs, pointed to her dog. “Sir Walter Scott wouldn’t like that. He’s out for his constitutional.”
“See our new dog?” continued Madame. “He’s absolutely forced himself on us.”
Miss Stanna gave me a sharp glance. I gave her one. She understood dogs too. I got up and stretched my neck toward her.
“Later on, dog,” she said, and she waved her hand toward me, “I’ll be charmed to have a talk with you.” Then she called out, “Good-bye, Clossie and Rudolph; good-bye, dogs,” and she strolled on.
We went on our way twisting and turning, but always[56] gliding so smoothly about this wonderful city. Is it because it is so big that one doesn’t get tired of New York?
We had gone away out to Van Cortlandt Park, and were thumping along a bit of bad road between the sad trees with their scant covering of dry leaves, when, to my dismay, we came suddenly abreast of another car in which sat one of my former owners whom I had not treated very well.