This took some time to settle, and some more time to write down. And
then, when the lick of paint was nearly dry on the perambulator and all
their shirts and socks were washed and mended, and lying on the kitchen
window-ledge ready for packing, what did Mr. Beale do but go out one
morning and come back with a perfectly strange dachshund.

"An' I can't go and leave the little beast till he knows 'imself a bit
in 'is noo place," said Mr. Beale, "an' 'ave 'im boltin' off gracious
knows where, and being pinched or carted off to the Dogs' Home, or that.
Can I, now?"

The new dog was very long, very brown, very friendly and charming. When
it had had its supper it wagged its tail, turned a clear and gentle eye
on Dickie, and without any warning stood on its head.

"Well," said Mr. Beale, "if there ain't money in that beast! A trick dog
'e is. 'E's wuth wot I give for 'im, so 'e is. Knows more tricks than
that 'ere, I'll be bound."

He did. He was a singularly well-educated dog. Next morning Mr. Beale,
coming down-stairs, was just in time to bang the front door in the face
of Amelia coming in, pail-laden, from "doing" the steps, and this to
prevent the flight of the new dog. The door of one of the dog-rooms was
open, and a fringe of inquisitive dogs ornamented the passage.

"What you open that door at all for?" Mr. Beale asked Amelia.

"I didn't," she said, and stuck to it.

That afternoon Beale, smoking in the garden, got up, as he often did, to
look through the window at the dogs. He gazed a moment, muttered
something, and made one jump to the back door. It was closed. Amelia was
giving the scullery floor a "thorough scrub over," and had fastened the
door to avoid having it opened with suddenness against her steaming pail
or her crouching form.

But Mr. Beale got in at the back-door and out at the front just in time
to see the dachshund disappearing at full speed, "like a bit of brown
toffee-stick," as he said, round the end of the street. They never saw
that dog again.

"Trained to it," Mr. Beale used to say sadly whenever he told the story;
"trained to it from a pup, you may lay your life. I see 'im as plain as
I see you. 'E listens an' 'e looks, and 'e doesn't 'ear nor see nobody.
An' 'e ups on his 'ind legs and turns the 'andle with 'is little twisty
front pawses, clever as a monkey, and hout 'e goes like a harrow in a
bow. Trained to it, ye see. I bet his master wot taught 'im that's sold
him time and again,