"
He leaned against a pile of empty casks to recover his breath, shook his
fist at the dog, and said, slowly--
Some people can't make too much of 'em. They talk about a dog's honest
eyes and his faithful 'art. I 'ad a dog once, and I never saw his eyes
look so honest as they did one day when 'e was sitting on a pound o'
beefsteak we was 'unting high and low for.
I've known dogs to cause a lot of trouble in my time. A man as used to
live in my street told me he 'ad been in jail three times because dogs
follered him 'ome and wouldn't go away when he told 'em to. He said
that some men would ha' kicked 'em out into the street, but he thought
their little lives was far too valuable to risk in that way.
Some people used to wink when 'e talked like that, but I didn't: I
remembered a dog that took a fancy to old Sam Small and Ginger Dick and
Peter Russet once in just the same way.
It was one night in a little public-'ouse down Commercial Road way.
They 'ad on'y been ashore a week, and, 'aving been turned out of a
music-'all the night afore because a man Ginger Dick had punched in the
jaw wouldn't behave 'imself, they said they'd spend the rest o' their
money on beer instead.
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