IX

DANDY A STORY OF A DOG


He was of mixed breed, and was supposed to have a strain of Dandy
Dinmont blood which gave him his name. A big ungainly animal with a
rough shaggy coat of blue-grey hair and white on his neck and clumsy
paws. He looked like a Sussex sheep-dog with legs reduced to half their
proper length. He was, when I first knew him, getting old and
increasingly deaf and dim of sight, otherwise in the best of health and
spirits, or at all events very good-tempered.

Until I knew Dandy I had always supposed that the story of Ludlam's dog
was pure invention, and I daresay that is the general opinion about it;
but Dandy made me reconsider the subject, and eventually I came to
believe that Ludlam's dog did exist once upon a time, centuries ago
perhaps, and that if he had been the laziest dog in the world Dandy was
not far behind him in that respect. It is true he did not lean his head
against a wall to bark; he exhibited his laziness in other ways. He
barked often, though never at strangers; he welcomed every visitor,
even the tax-collector, with tail-waggings and a smile. He spent a good
deal of his time in the large kitchen, where he had a sofa to sleep on,
and when the two cats of the house wanted an hour's rest they would
coil themselves up on Dandy's broad shaggy side, preferring that bed to
cushion or rug. They were like a warm blanket over him, and it was a
sort of mutual benefit society. After an hour's sleep Dandy would go
out for a short constitutional as far as the neighbouring thoroughfare,
where he would blunder against people, wag his tail to everybody, and
then come back. He had six or eight or more outings each day, and,