They displayed inconvenient curiosity; they declared a great
scarcity of deaf dogs.

"You see," they said, "dogs aren't deaf."

"Mine's got to be," said Bert. "I've HAD dogs that aren't deaf.
All I want. It's like this, you see--I sell gramophones.
Naturally I got to make 'em talk and tootle a bit to show 'em
orf. Well, a dog that isn't deaf doesn't like it--gets excited,
smells round, barks, growls. That upsets the customer. See?
Then a dog that has his hearing fancies things. Makes burglars
out of passing tramps. Wants to fight every motor that makes a
whizz. All very well if you want livening up, but our place is
lively enough. I don't want a dog of that sort. I want a quiet
dog."

In the end he got three in succession, but none of them turned
out well. The first strayed off into the infinite, heeding no
appeals; the second was killed in the night by a fruit
motor-waggon which fled before Grubb could get down; the third
got itself entangled in the front wheel of a passing cyclist, who
came through the plate glass, and proved to be an actor out of
work and an undischarged bankrupt. He demanded compensation for
some fancied injury, would hear nothing of the valuable dog he
had killed or the window he had broken, obliged Grubb by sheer
physical obduracy to straighten his buckled front wheel, and
pestered the struggling firm with a series of inhumanly worded
solicitor's letters. Grubb answered them--stingingly, and put
himself, Bert thought, in the wrong.