Chapter 5

I WAS up in Tommy’s room lying under the bed with one of his shoes in my mouth. It was one of his school shoes. I had dragged it out of the closet one day when Mary left the door open. I didn’t feel so lonesome when I had it in my mouth. He had been gone for several days now.

Well, I was lying there, and sometimes I chewed the top of the shoe and sometimes I just held it, and then I heard James whistling and calling me.

I wondered what he wanted, so I left the shoe under the bed where it was safe and ran down to see.

He was standing in the front hall, and Bijou and Fifine were there, too. “Come along, Muffins,” said James, and as soon as I came near enough for him to reach me he picked me up. He held me under his arm and went over to the front door and opened it.

The automobile was standing out in front of the house, and Bijou and Fifine thought we were going for a ride and they wanted to go too, but James pushed them back with his foot and told them to stay at home. He shut the door behind us and went over to the automobile and got up in front beside William. He put me down on his knees but still he held me, and then we started off.

I was very much excited. I had never been in an automobile before. All the other dogs had. I had often watched from the window and seen them starting out with the mistress, but she never took me.

We rolled along down the street, with William holding the wheel, and there were other automobiles and crowds of people, and I saw some other dogs, too.

The wind blew, and I was so excited I barked and barked until James told me to be quiet, and even then I didn’t stop till he held my mouth shut with his hand.

After a while we turned into a narrower street and stopped in front of a queer-looking shop. It had a big window with a sort of cage in it with an upstairs and a downstairs, and puppies and some long-haired cats in it.

William stopped the automobile in front of the shop. “This is the place,” he said.

Then he got down and took me from James and carried me into the shop. I never heard such a noise as there was in there. It had cages all along one side with dogs and cats in them, and some other animals that I didn’t know, and the dogs were barking and yelping, and big green birds were shrieking, and there were chickens making a noise, too.