Page:The King in Yellow (1895).djvu/251

Rh “What do you come and complain to me for?”

“If you don’t chain him I’ll take him,” shouted the policeman.

“What's that to me, mon capitaine?”

“Wha—t! Isn’t that bull-dog yours?”

“If it was, don’t you suppose I’d chain him?”

The officer glared for a moment in silence, then deciding that as he was a student he was wicked, grabbed at the dog who promptly dodged. Around and around the flower-beds they raced, and when the officer came too near for comfort, the bull-dog cut across a flower-bed which perhaps was not playing fair.

The young man was amused, and the dog also seemed to enjoy the exercise.

The policeman noticed this and decided to strike at the fountain-head of the evil. He stormed up to the student and said, “As the owner of this public nuisance I arrest you!”

“But,” objected the other, “I disclaim the dog.”

That was a poser. It was useless to attempt to catch the dog until three gardeners lent a hand, but then the dog simply ran away and disappeared in the rue de Medici.

The policeman shambled off to find consolation among the white-capped nurses, and the student, looking at his watch, stood up yawning. Then catching sight of Hastings, he smiled and bowed. Hastings walked over to the marble, laughing.

“Why, Clifford,” he said, “I didn’t recognize you.”

“It’s my moustache,” sighed the other. “I sacrificed itto humor a whim of—of—a friend, “What do you think of my dog?”