Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/177

 him with a will. A picker-up gathered the 'fleece' with a great show of labour and care, and tabled it, to the well-ventilated disgust of old Scotty, the wool-roller. When they let the dog go he struck for home—a clean-shaven poodle, except for a ferocious moustache and a tuft at the end of his tail.

The cook's assistant said that he'd have given a five-pound-note for a portrait of Curry-and-Rice when that poodle came back from the shed. The cook was naturally very indignant; he was surprised at first—then he got mad. He had the whole afternoon to get worked up in, and at tea-time he went for the men properly.

'Wotter yer growlin' about?' asked one. 'Wot's the matter with yer, anyway?'

'I don't know nothing about yer dog!' protested a rouseabout; 'wotyer gettin' on to me for?'

'Wotter they bin doin' to the cook now?' enquired a ring-leader innocently, as he sprawled into his place at the table. 'Can't yer let Curry alone? Wot d'yer want to be chyackin' him for? Give it a rest.'

'Well, look here, chaps,' observed Geordie, in a determined tone, 'I call it a shame, that's what I call it. Why couldn't you leave an old man's dog alone? It was a mean, dirty trick to do, and I suppose you thought it funny. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the whole lot of you, for a drafted mob of crawlers. If I'd been there it wouldn't have been done; and I wouldn't blame Curry if he was to poison the whole convicted push.'

General lowering of faces and pulling of hats down