The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon Part 12

"Oh, he'll learn to tolerate you, I guess," she rea.s.sured him. Then she rippled on, "I just had to have him then. He was one of five, but he already had a little personality all his own, although he's only three weeks old. I saw his mother--a magnificent creature, Ambrose, big as a Shetland pony and twice as s.h.a.ggy, and with the most wonderful appealing eyes, that looked at me as if it stabbed her to the heart to have her little ones taken from her. And such a pedigree! It covers pages. Her name is Gloria Audacious Indomitable; the Audacious Indomitables are a very celebrated family of St. Bernards, the kennel man said."

"What about his father?" queried Mr. Pottle, poking the ball of pup with his finger.

"I didn't see him," admitted Mrs. Pottle. "I believe they are not living together now."

She snuggled the pup to her capacious bosom.

"So," she said, "its whole name is Pershing Audacious Indomitable, isn't it, tweetums?"

"It's a swell name," admitted Mr. Pottle. "Er--Blossom dear, how much did he cost?"

She brought out the reply quickly, almost timidly.

"Fifty dollars."

"Fif----" his voice stuck in his larynx. "Great Caesar's Ghost!"

"But think of his pedigree," cried his wife.

All he could say was:

"Great Caesar's Ghost! Fifty dollars! Great Caesar's Ghost!"

"Why, we can exhibit him at bench shows," she argued, "and win hundreds of dollars in prizes. And his pups will be worth fifty dollars per pup easily, with that pedigree."

"Great Caesar's Ghost," said Mr. Pottle, despondently. "Fifty dollars!

And the shaving stick business all geflooey."

"He'll be worth a thousand to me as a protector," she declared, defiantly. "You wait and see, Ambrose Pottle. Wait till he grows up to be a great, big, handsome, intelligent dog, winning prizes and protecting your wife. He'll be the best investment we ever made, you mark my words."

Had Pershing encountered Mr. Pottle's eye at that moment the marrow of his small canine bones would have congealed.

"All right, Blossom," said her spouse, gloomily. "He's yours. You take care of him. I wonder, I just wonder, that's all."

"What do you wonder, Ambrose?"

"If they'll let him visit us when we're in the poor house."

To this his wife remarked, "Fiddlesticks," and began to feed Pershing from a nursing bottle.

"Grade A milk, I suppose," groaned Mr. Pottle.

"Cream," she corrected, calmly. "Pershing is no mungle. Remember that, Ambrose Pottle."

It was a nippy, frosty night, and Mr. Pottle, after much chattering of teeth, had succeeded in getting a place warm in the family bed, and was floating peacefully into a dream in which he got a contract for ten carload lots of Pottle's Edible Shaving Cream. "Just Lather, Shave and Lick. That's All," when his wife's soft knuckles prodded him in the ribs.

"Ambrose, Ambrose, do wake up. Do you hear that?"

He sleepily opened a protesting eye. He heard faint, plaintive, peeping sounds somewhere in the house.

"It's that wretched hound," he said crossly.

"Pershing is not a hound, Ambrose Pottle."

"Oh, all right, Blossom, ALL RIGHT. It's that n.o.ble creature, G'night."

But the knuckles tattooed on his drowsy ribs again.

"Ambrose, he's lonesome."

No response.

"Ambrose, little Pershing is lonesome."

"Well, suppose you go and sing him to sleep."

"Ambrose! And us married only a month!"

Mr. Pottle sat up in bed.

"Is he your pup," he demanded, oratorically, "or is he not your pup, Mrs. Pottle? And anyhow, why pamper him? He's all right. Didn't I walk six blocks in the cold to a grocery store to get a box for his bed?

Didn't you line it with some of my best towels? Isn't it under a nice, warm stove? What more can a hound----"

"Ambrose!"

"----n.o.ble creature, expect?"

He dived into his pillow as if it were oblivion.

"Ambrose," said his wife, loudly and firmly, "Pershing is lonesome.

Thoroughbreds have such sensitive natures. If he thought we were lying here neglecting him, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he died of a broken heart before morning. A pedigreed dog like Pershing has the feelings of a delicate child."

m.u.f.fled words came from the Pottle pillow.

"Well, whose one man dog is he?"

Mrs. Pottle began to sniffle audibly.

"I d-don't believe you'd c-care if I got up and c-caught my d-death of c-cold," she said. "You know how easily I c-chill, too. But I c-can't leave that poor motherless little fellow cry his heart out in that big, dark, lonely kitchen. I'll just have to get up and----"

She stirred around as if she really intended to. The chivalrous Mr.

Pottle heaved up from his pillow like an irate grampus from the depths of a tank.

"I'll go," he grumbled, fumbling around with goose-fleshed limbs for his chilly slippers. "Shall I tell him about Little Red Riding Hood or Goody Two Shoes?"

"Ambrose, if you speak roughly to Pershing, I shall never forgive you.