Sitting on his haunches just outside, his mouth open, his little, red
tongue hanging out, was a small Japanese spaniel. There may have been
thousands of others in the world, but that one I was very sure, from the
first, that I recognized, and I was equally sure that he recognized me. I
stared at him fascinated. His bead-like, black eyes blinked and blinked
again; and his teeth, like a row of ivory needles, gleamed white from his
red gums. He neither growled nor wagged his tail, but it seemed to me
that the expression of his aged, puckered-up little face was the
incarnation of malevolence. I pointed to him, and whispered hoarsely to
Guest:
"Her dog!"
"Whose?" he asked sharply.
"Miss Van Hoyt's," I answered.
"Rubbish!" he declared. "There are hundreds of dogs like that."
I shook my head.
"Never another in the wide world," I said. "Look how the little brute is
scowling at me!"
The bedroom steward came round the corner at that moment. I pointed to
the dog.
"I always understood that dogs were not permitted in the state-rooms,
steward," I remarked.
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