Page:Short Stories (1912).djvu/56

Rh meal tables "vas full mit von hundert und vorty to vifty miners—efery day! Und dere vas vifteen pubs vot I could count from mine door—zo it vas—und dey vas drink all night, ain't it? Und now I vas tell you, for Gosstruth, I cannot make de zwei ends meet—und dot damned Irish shanty below sellin' der visky und grog for sixpence, ain't it?

"Noaw Harry, vot you vas krumble for zo moch? You ought ter pe 'shamed mit yerself komparing dot low-down shanty mit de Printz obt Vales, so you ought. Get out, Shmoker! Vot I told you? Haf I not toldt it you to get out mit you?" And poor "Shmoker, warned by the dulcet-toned voice of "Mine Vife," would just escape the broom handle and Harry's foot as he scuttled out of the dining room, over the veranda and into the street.

"Dere gets avay dot damnt dog akain! Shmoker, kom here! Kom here! Do you hear me? I vas shain you op mit youself!" And poor "Shmoker" would slink back, to be chained up beneath the water tank in a corner of the yard, where he could see no one and amuse himself with nothing except a stray duckling, which persistently waddled over to the wet ground beneath the leaky tap to fancy itself in a pond.

Poor old Shmoker! He was a sad mongrel, with a long nose that turned up and a tail about an inch out of the proper line—of no breed at all except that in some forgotten age an ancestor must have casually met with an Irish terrier. But Shmoker and I were pals. I used to take him bits of bread, talk doggie-talk to him, and scratch his back with a stick just where the ticks were and he couldn't reach. He loved that.

Shmoker wouldn't let a nigger or a Chinaman near the place at night without raising Cain, so that was where he came in and what made him "vorth his tucker" to "Mine Haus." But he led an awful life;