nd jumped down again. "Or no, perhaps you _would_
get a better view if----" he jumped up hastily, "and yet I don't
know----" he dived down, "though, of course, if you---- Oh lor! this
_is_ a day," and he put both paws lovingly on my collar.

Suddenly he was quiet again. The stillness, the absence of storm in the
taxi was so unnatural that I began to miss it. "Buck up, old fool," I
said, but he sat motionless by my side, plunged in thought. I tried to
cheer him up. I pointed out King's Cross to him; he wouldn't even bark
at it. I called his attention to the poster outside the Euston Theatre
of The Two Biffs; for all the regard he showed he might never even have
heard of them. The monumental masonry by Portland Road failed to uplift
him.

At Baker Street he woke up and grinned cheerily. "It's all right," he
said, "I was trying to remember what happened to me this
morning--something rather miserable, I thought, but I can't get hold of
it. However, it's all right now. How are _you_?" And he went mad again.

At Paddington I bought a label at the bookstall and wrote it for him. He
went round and round my leg looking for me. "Funny thing," he said as he
began to unwind, "he was here a moment ago. I'll just go round once
more. I rather think ... _Ow!_ Oh, there you are!" I stepped off him,
unravelled the lead and dragged him to the Parcels Office.

"I want to send this by the two o'clock train," I said to the man the
other side of the counter.

"Send what?" he said.

I looked down. Chum was making himself very small and black in the
shadow of the counter. He was completely hidden from the sight of
anybody the other side of it.

"Come out," I said, "and show yourself."

"Not much," he said. "A parcel! I'm not going to be a jolly old parcel
for anybody."

"It's only a way of speaking," I pleaded. "Actually you are travelling
as a small black gentleman. You will go with the guard--a delightful
man."

Chum came out reluctantly. The clerk leant over the counter and managed
to see him.

"According to our regulations," he said, and I always dislike people
who begin like that, "he has to be on a chain. A leather lead won't do."

Chum smiled all over himself. I don't know which pleased him more--the
suggestion that he was a very large and fierce dog, or the impossibility
now of his travelling with the guard, delightful man though he might be.
He gave himself a shake and started for the door.

"Tut, tut, it's a great dis