Ulysses and the Dogman

by O. Henry

　　

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Do you know the time of the dogmen?When the forefinger of twilight begins to smudge the clear-drawn lines ofthe Big City there is inaugurated an hour devoted to one of the mostmelancholy sights of urban life.Out from the towering flat crags and apartment peaks of the cliff dwellersof New York steals an army of beings that were once men, Even yet they goupright upon two limbs and retain human form and speech; but you willobserve that they are behind animals in progress. Each of these beingsfollows a dog, to which he is fastened by an artificial ligament.These men are all victims to Circe. Not willingly do they become flunkeysto Fido, bell boys to bull terriers, and toddlers after Towzer. ModernCirce, instead of turning them into animals, has kindly left thedifference of a six-foot leash between them. Every one of those dogmenhas been either cajoled, bribed, or commanded by his own particular Circeto take the dear household pet out for an airing.By their faces and manner you can tell that the dogmen are bound in ahopeless enchantment. Never will there come even a dog-catcher Ulysses toremove the spell.The faces of some are stonily set. They are past the commiseration, thecuriosity, or the jeers of their fellow-beings. Years of matrimony, ofcontinuous compulsory canine constitutionals, have made them callous.They unwind their beasts from lamp posts, or the ensnared legs of profanepedestrians, with the stolidity of mandarins manipulating the strings oftheir kites.Others, more recently reduced to the ranks of Rover's retinue, take theirmedicine sulkily and fiercely. They play the dog on the end of their linewith the pleasure felt by the girl out fishing when she catches asea-robin on her hook. They glare at you threateningly if you look atthem, as if it would be their delight to let slip the dogs of war. Theseare half-mutinous dogmen, not quite Circe-ized, and you will do well notto kick their charges, should they sniff around your ankles.Others of the tribe do not seem to feel so keenly. They are mostlyunfresh youths, with gold caps and drooping cigarettes, who do notharmonize with their dogs. The animals they attend wear satin bows intheir collars; and the young men steer them so assiduously that you aretempted to the theory that some personal advantage, contingent uponsatisfactory service, waits upon the execution of their duties.The dogs thus personally conducted are of many varieties; but they are onein fatness, in pampered, diseased vileness of temper, in insolent,snarling capriciousness of behaviour. They tug at the leash fractiously,they make leisurely nasal inventory of every door step, railing, andpost. They sit down to rest when they choose; they wheeze like the winnerof a Third Avenue beefsteak-eating contest; they blunder clumsily intoopen cellars and coal holes; they lead the dogmen a merry dance.These unfortunate dry nurses of dogdom, the cur cuddlers, mongrelmanagers, Spitz stalkers, poodle pullers, Skye scrapers, dachshunddandlers, terrier trailers and Pomeranian pushers of the cliff-dwellingCirces follow their charges meekly. The doggies neither fear nor respectthem. Masters of the house these men whom they hold in leash may be, butthey are not masters of them. From cosey corner to fire escape, fromdivan to dumbwaiter, doggy's snarl easily drives this two-legged being whois commissioned to walk at the other end of his string during his outing.One twilight the dogmen came forth as usual at their Circes' pleading,guerdon, or crack of the whip. One among them was a strong man,apparently of too solid virtues for this airy vocation. His expressionwas melancholic, his manner depressed. He was leashed to a vile whitedog, loathsomely fat, fiendishly ill-natured, gloatingly intractabletoward his despised conductor.At a corner nearest to his apartment house the dogman turned down a sidestreet, hoping for fewer witnesses to his ignominy. The surfeited beastwaddled before him, panting with spleen and the labour of motion.Suddenly the dog stopped. A tall, brown, long-coated, wide-brimmed manstood like a Colossus blocking the sidewalk and declaring:"Well, I'm a son of a gun!""Jim Berry!" breathed the dogman, with exclamation points in his voice."Sam Telfair," cried Wide-Brim again, "you ding-basted old willy-walloo,give us your hoof!"Their hands clasped in the brief, tight greeting of the West that is deathto the hand-shake microbe."You old fat rascal!" continued Wide-Brim, with a wrinkled brown smile;"it's been five years since I seen you. I been in this town a week, butyou can't find nobody in such a place. Well, you dinged old married man,how are they coming?"Something mushy and heavily soft like raised dough leaned against Jim'sleg and chewed his trousers with a yeasty growl."Get to work," said Jim, "and explain this yard-wide hydrophobia yearlingyou've throwed your lasso over. Are you the pound-master of this burg?Do you call that a dog or what?""I need a drink," said the dogman, dejected at the reminder of his old dogof the sea. "Come on."Hard by was a cafe. 'Tis ever so in the big city.They sat at a table, and the bloated monster yelped and scrambled at theend of his leash to get at the cafe cat."Whiskey," said Jim to the waiter."Make it two," said the dogman."You're fatter," said Jim, "and you look subjugated. I don't know aboutthe East agreeing with you. All the boys asked me to hunt you up when Istarted, Sandy King, he went to the Klondike. Watson Burrel, he marriedthe oldest Peters girl. I made some money buying beeves, and I bought alot of wild land up on the Little Powder. Going to fence next fall. BillRawlins, he's gone to farming. You remember Bill, of course -- he wascourting Marcella -- excuse me, Sam -- I mean the lady you married, whileshe was teaching school at Prairie View. But you was the lucky man. Howis Missis Telfair?""S-h-h-h!" said the dogman, signalling the waiter; "give it a name.""Whiskey," said Jim."Make it two," said the dogman."She's well," he continued, after his chaser. "She refused to liveanywhere but in New York, where she came from. We live in a flat. Everyevening at six I take that dog out for a walk. It's Marcella's pet.There never were two animals on earth, Jim, that hated one another like meand that dog does. His name's Lovekins. Marcella dresses for dinnerwhile we're out. We eat tabble dote. Ever try one of them, Jim?""No, I never," said Jim. "I seen the signs, but I thought they said'table de hole.' I thought it was French for pool tables. How does ittaste?""If you're going to be in the city for awhile we will --""No, sir-ee. I'm starting for home this evening on the 7.25. Like tostay longer, but I can't.""I'll walk down to the ferry with you," said the dogman.The dog had bound a leg each of Jim and the chair together, and had sunkinto a comatose slumber. Jim stumbled, and the leash was slightlywrenched. The shrieks of the awakened beast rang for a block around."If that's your dog," said Jim, when they were on the street again,"what's to hinder you from running that habeas corpus you've got aroundhis neck over a limb and walking off and forgetting him?""I'd never dare to," said the dogman, awed at the bold proposition. "Hesleeps in the bed, I sleep on a lounge. He runs howling to Marcella if Ilook at him. Some night, Jim, I'm going to get even with that dog. I'vemade up my mind to do it. I'm going to creep over with a knife and cut ahole in his mosquito bar so they can get in to him. See if I don't do it!""You ain't yourself, Sam Telfair. You ain't what you was once. I don'tknow about these cities and flats over here. With my own eyes I seen youstand off both the Tillotson boys in Prairie View with the brass faucetout of a molasses barrel. And I seen you rope and tie the wildest steeron Little Powder in 39 1-2.""I did, didn't I?" said the other, with a temporary gleam in his eye."But that was before I was dogmatized.""Does Misses Telfair --" began Jim."Hush!" said the dogman. "Here's another cafe."They lined up at the bar. The dog fell asleep at their feet."Whiskey," said Jim."Make it two," said the dogman."I thought about you," said Jim, "when I bought that wild land. I wishedyou was out there to help me with the stock.""Last Tuesday," said the dogman, "he bit me on the ankle because I askedfor cream in my coffee. He always gets the cream.""You'd like Prairie View now," said Jim. "The boys from the round-ups forfifty miles around ride in there. One corner of my pasture is in sixteenmiles of the town. There's a straight forty miles of wire on one side ofit.""You pass through the kitchen to get to the bedroom," said the dogman,"and you pass through the parlour to get to the bath room, and you backout through the dining-room to get into the bedroom so you can turn aroundand leave by the kitchen. And he snores and barks in his sleep, and Ihave to smoke in the park on account of his asthma.""Don't Missis Telfair--" began Jim."Oh, shut up!" said the dogman. "What is it this time?""Whiskey," said Jim."Make it two," said the dogman."Well, I'll be racking along down toward the ferry," said the other."Come on, there, you mangy, turtle-backed, snake-headed, bench-leggedton-and-a-half of soap-grease!" shouted the dogman, with a new note in hisvoice and a new hand on the leash. The dog scrambled after them, with anangry whine at such unusual language from his guardian.At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led the way through swingingdoors."Last chance," said he. "Speak up.""Whiskey," said Jim."Make it two," said the dogman."I don't know," said the ranchman, "where I'll find the man I want to takecharge of the Little Powder outfit. I want somebody I know somethingabout. Finest stretch of prairie and timber you ever squinted your eyeover, Sam. Now if you was --""Speaking of hydrophobia," said the dogman, "the other night he chewed apiece out of my leg because I knocked a fly off of Marcella's arm. 'Itought to be cauterized,' says Marcella, and I was thinking so myself. Itelephones for the doctor, and when he comes Marcella says to me: 'Help mehold the poor dear while the doctor fixes his mouth. Oh, I hope he got novirus on any of his toofies when he bit you.' Now what do you think ofthat?""Does Missis Telfair--" began Jim."Oh, drop it," said the dogman. "Come again!""Whiskey," said Jim."Make it two," said the dogman.They walked on to the ferry. The ranchman stepped to the ticket window.Suddenly the swift landing of three or four heavy kicks was heard, theair. was rent by piercing canine shrieks, and a pained, outraged,lubberly, bow-legged pudding of a dog ran frenziedly up the street alone."Ticket to Denver," said Jim."Make it two," shouted the ex-dogman, reaching for his inside pocket.

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