A Disappointment, an Accident, and a Perplexing Return.  
But the trip to York produced no fruit! Some of the tradespeople did, indeed, remember old Mrs Willis and her granddaughter, but had neither seen nor heard of them since they left. They knew very little about them personally, and nothing whatever of their previous history, as they had stayed only a short time in the town, and had been remarkably shy and uncommunicative—the result, it was thought, of their having “come down” in life.
 
Much disappointed, Slidder and I returned to London.
 
“It is fortunate that we did not tell granny the object of our trip, so that she will be spared the disappointment that we have met with,” said I, as the train neared the metropolis.
 
My companion made no reply; he had evidently taken the matter much to heart.
 
We were passing rapidly through the gradually thickening groups of streets and houses which besprinkle the circumference of the great city, and sat gazing contemplatively on back yards, chimney cans, unfinished suburban residences, pieces of waste ground, back windows, internal domestic arrangements, etcetera, as they flew past in rapid succession.
 
“Robin,” said I, breaking silence again, and using the name which had by that time grown familiar, “have you made up your mind yet about taking service with Dr McTougall? Now that we have got Mrs Jones engaged and paid to look after granny, she will be able to get on pretty well without you, and you shall have time to run over and see her frequently.”
 
“H’m! I don’t quite see my way,” returned the boy, with a solemn look. “You see, sir, if it was a page-in-buttons I was to be, to attend on my young lady the guv’ness, I might take it into consideration; but to go into buttons an’ blue merely to open a door an’ do the purlite to wisitors, an’ mix up things with bad smells by way of a change—why, d’ee see, the prospec’ ain’t temptin’. Besides, I hate blue. The buttons is all well enough, but blue reminds me so of the bobbies that I don’t think I could surwive it long—indeed I don’t!”
 
“Robin,” said I reproachfully, “I’m grieved at your indifference to friendship.”
 
“’Ow so, sir?”
 
“Have you not mentioned merely your objections and the disadvantages, without once weighing against them the advantages?”
 
“Vich is—?”
 
“Which are,” said I, “being under the same roof with me and with Punch, to say nothing of your young lady!”
 
“Ah, to be sure! Vell, but I did think of all that, only, don’t you see, I’ll come to be under the same roof with you all in course o’ time w’en you’ve got spliced an’ set up for—”
 
“Slidder,” said I sternly, and losing patience under the boy’s presumption, “you must never again dare to speak of such a thing. You know very well that it is quite out of the question, and—and—you’ll get into a careless way of referring to such a possibility among servants or—”
 
“No; honour bright!” exclaimed Slidder, with, for the first time, a somewhat abashed look in his face; “I wouldn’t for the wealth of the Injies say a word to nobody wotsomever. It’s only atween ourselves that I wentur’s to—”
 
“Well, well; enough,” said I; “don’t in future venture to do it even between ourselves, if you care to retain my friendship. Now. Robin,” I added, as the train slowed, “of course you’ll not let a hint of our reason for going north pass your lips to poor granny or any one; and give her the old message, that I’ll be along to see her soon.”
 
It was pleasant to return to such a hearty reception as I met with from the doctor’s family. Although my absence had been but for a few days, the children came crowding and clinging round me, declaring that it seemed like weeks since I left them. The doctor himself was, as usual, exuberant, and his wife extremely kind. Miss Blythe, I found, had not yet returned, and was not expected for some time.
 
But the reception accorded me by the doctor and his family was as nothing to the wild welcome lavished upon me by Dumps. That loving creature came more nearly to the bursting-point than I had ever seen him before. His spirit was obviously much too large for his body. He was romping with the McTougall baby when I entered. The instant he heard my voice in the hall he uttered a squeal—almost a yell—of delight, and came down the two flights of stairs in a wriggling heap, his legs taking comparatively little part in the movement. His paws, when first applied to the wax-cloth of the nursery floor, slipped as if on ice, without communicating motion. On the stairs, his ears, tail, head, hair, heart, and tongue conspired to convulse him. Only when he had fairly reached me did the hind-legs do their duty, as he bounced and wriggled high into air. Powers of description are futile; vision alone is of any avail in such a case. Are dogs mortal? Is such overflowing wealth of affection extinguished at death? Pshaw! thought I, the man who thinks so shows that he is utterly void of the merest rudiments of common sense!
 
I did not mention the object of my visit to York to the doctor or his wife. Indeed, that natural shyness and reticence which I have found it impossible to shake off—except when writing to you, good reader—would in any case have prevented my communicating much of my private affairs to them, but particularly in a case like this, which seemed to be assuming the aspect of a wildly romantic hunt after a lost young girl, more like the plot of a sensational novel than an occurrence in every-day life.
 
It may be remarked here that the doctor had indeed understood from Mrs Willis that she had somehow lost a granddaughter; but being rather fussy in his desires and efforts to comfort people in distress, he had failed to rouse the sympathy which would have drawn out details from the old woman. I therefore merely gave him to understand that the business which had called me to the north of England had been unsuccessful, and then changed the subject.
 
Meanwhile Dumps returned to the nursery to resume the game of romps which I had interrupted.
 
After a general “scrimmage,” in which the five chips of the elder McTougall had joined, without regard to any concerted plan, Dolly suddenly shouted “’Top!”
 
“What are we to stop for?” demanded Harry, whose powers of self-restraint were not strong.
 
“Want a ’est!” said Dolly, sitting down on a stool with a resolute plump.
 
“Rest quick, then, and let’s go on again,” said Harry, throwing himself into a small chair, while Job and Jenny sprawled on an ottoman in the window.
 
Seeing that her troops appeared to be exhausted, and that a period of repose had set in, the tall nurse thought this a fitting opportunity to retire for a short recreative talk with the servants in the kitchen.
 
“Now be good, child’n,” she said, in passing out, “and don’t ’urt poor little Dumps.”
 
“Oh no,” chorused the five, while, with faces of intense and real solemnity, they assured nurse that they would not hurt Dumps for the world.
 
“We’ll be so dood!” remarked Dolly, as the door closed—and she really meant it.
 
“What’ll we do to him now?” asked Harry, whose patience was exhausted.
 
“Tut off him’s head,” cried Dolly, clapping her fat little hands.
 
“No, burn him for a witch,” said Jenny.
 
“Oh no! ve’ll skeese him flat till he’s bu’sted,” suggested Job.
 
But Jenny thought that would be too cruel, and Harry said it would be too tame.
 
It must not be supposed that these and several other appalling tortures were meant to be really attempted. As Job afterwards said, it was only play.
 
“Oh! I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Jack, who was considerably in advance of the others in regard to education, “we’ll turn him into Joan of Arc.”
 
“What’s Joan of Arc?” asked Job.
 
“It isn’t a what—it’s a who,” cried Jack, laughing.
 
“Is it like Noah’s Ark?” inquired Dolly.
 
“No, no; it’s a lady who lived in France, an’ thought she was sent to deliver her country from—from—I don’t know all what, an’ put on men’s clo’es an’ armour, an&............