"I'm fetchin' him fast as I can."

Tilda pushed past her, and advanced sternly to the front doorstep.
"'Dolph, come here!" she commanded. 'Dolph barked once again defiantly,
then laid himself down on the step in abject contrition, rolling over on
his back and lifting all four legs skyward.

Tilda rolled him sideways with a slap, caught him by the scruff of the
neck, and began to rate him soundly. But a moment later her grasp
relaxed as a door opened within the passage, and at the sound of a
footstep she looked up, to see a tall man in black standing over her and
towering in the doorway.

"What is the meaning of this noise?" demanded the man in black. He was
elderly and bald, with small pig-eyes, grey side-whiskers, and for mouth
a hard square slit much like that of the collecting-box by the gate.
A long pendulous nose came down over it and almost met an upthrust lower
jaw. He wore a clerical suit, with a dingy white neck-tie; the skin
about his throat hung in deep folds, and the folds were filled with an
unpleasing grey stubble.

"If--if you please, sir, I was comin' with a message, an' he started
after a cat. I can't break 'im of it."

"Turn him out," said the man in black. He walked to the gate and held
it open while Tilda ejected Godolphus into the street. "I never allow
dogs on my premises."

"No, sir."