CHAPTER II

AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT

That night stands up without any clear traces about it or near it, like
the brazen castle of romance round which the sea-tide flows. My father
must have borne me miles along the road; he must have procured food for
me; I have an idea of feeling a damp forehead and drinking new milk, and
by-and-by hearing a roar of voices or vehicles, and seeing a dog that
went alone through crowded streets without a master, doing as he pleased,
and stopping every other dog he met. He took his turning, and my father
and I took ours. We were in a house that, to my senses, had the smell of
dark corners, in a street where all the house-doors were painted black,
and shut with a bang. Italian organ-men and milk-men paraded the street
regularly, and made it sound hollow to their music. Milk, and no cows
anywhere; numbers of people, and no acquaintances among them; my thoughts
were occupied by the singularity of such things.

My father could soon make me forget that I was transplanted; he could act
dog, tame rabbit, fox, pony, and a whole nursery collection alive, but he
was sometimes absent for days, and I was not of a temper to be on
friendly terms with those who were unable to captivate my imagination as
he had done. When he was at home I rode him all round the room and
upstairs to bed, I lashed him with a whip till he frightened me, so real
was his barking; if I said 'Menagerie' he became a caravan of wild
beasts; I undid a button of his waistcoat, and it was a lion that made a
spring, roaring at me; I pulled his coat-tails and off I went tugging at
an old bear that swung a hind leg as he turned, in the queerest way, and
then sat up and beating his breast sent out a mew-moan. Our room was
richer to me than all the Grange while these performances were going