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  Out in the street he put a hand on my arm and his face became serious again. “Thank ye, Jim. Myrtle was right bad tonight and I’m grateful.”

  Driving away, I realised that I had failed to convince him that there was nothing wrong with his dog. He was sure I had saved her life. It had been an unusual visit and as my 2 A.M. whisky burned in my stomach I decided that Humphrey Cobb was a very funny little man. But I liked him.

  After that night I saw him quite frequently, exercising Myrtle in the fields. With his almost spherical build he seemed to bounce over the grass, but his manner was always self-contained and rational, except that he kept thanking me for pulling his dog back from the jaws of death.

  Then quite suddenly I was back at the beginning again. It was shortly after midnight and as I lifted the bedside phone, I could hear the distraught weeping before the receiver touched my ear.

  “Oooh … oooh … Jim, Jim. Myrtle’s in a terrible bad way. Will ye come?”

  “What … what is it this time?”

  “She’s twitchin’.”

  “Twitching?”

  “Aye, twitchin’ summat terrible. Oh, come on, Jim, lad, don’t keep me waiting. I’m worried to death. I’m sure she’s got distemper.” He broke down again.

  My head began to reel. “She can’t have distemper, Humphrey. Not in a flash, like that.”

  “I’m beggin’ you, Jim,” he went on as though he hadn’t heard. “Be a pal. Come and see Myrtle.”

  “All right,” I said wearily. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, you’re a good lad, Jim, you’re a good lad. …” The voice trailed away as I replaced the phone.

  I dressed at normal speed with none of the panic of the first time. It sounded like a repetition, but why after midnight again? On my way to Cedar House I decided it must be another false alarm—but you never knew.

  The same dizzying wave of whisky fumes enveloped me in the porch. Humphrey, sniffling and moaning, fell against me once or twice as he ushered me into the kitchen. He pointed to the basket in the corner.

  “There she is,” he said, wiping his eyes. “I’ve just got back from Ripon and found ’er like this.”

  “Racing again, eh?”

  “Aye, gamblin’ on them ’osses and drinkin’ and leavin’ me poor dog pinin’ at home. I’m a rotter, Jim, that’s what I am.”

  “Rubbish, Humphrey! I’ve told you before. You’re not doing her any harm by having a day out. Anyway, how about this twitching? She looks all right now.”

  “Yes, she’s stopped doing it, but when I came in her back leg was goin’ like this.” He made a jerking movement with his hand.

  I groaned inwardly. “But she could have been scratching or flicking away a fly.”

  “Nay, there’s summat more than that. I can tell she’s sufferin’. Just look at them eyes.”

  I could see what he meant. Myrtle’s beagle eyes were pools of emotion, and it was easy to read melting reproach in their depths.

  With a feeling of futility I examined her. I knew what I would find—nothing. But when I tried to explain to the little man that his pet was normal, he wouldn’t have it.

  “Oh, you’ll give her one of them wonderful tablets,” he pleaded. “It cured her last time.”

  I felt I had to pacify him, so Myrtle received another installment of vitamins.

  Humphrey was immensely relieved and weaved his way to the drawing room and the whisky bottle.

  “I need a little pick-me-up after that shock,” he said. “You’ll ’ave one, too, won’t you, Jim, lad?”

  This pantomime was enacted frequently over the next few months, always after race meetings and always between midnight and 1 A.M. I had ample opportunity to analyse the situation, and I came to a fairly obvious conclusion.

  Most of the time Humphrey was a normal conscientious pet owner, but after a large intake of alcohol his affectionate feelings degenerated into glutinous sentimentality and guilt. I invariably went out when he called me because I knew that he would be deeply distressed if I refused. I was treating Humphrey, not Myrtle.

  It amused me that not once did he accept my protestations that my visit was unnecessary. Each time he was sure that my magic tablets had saved his dog’s life.

  Mind you, I did not discount the possibility that Myrtle was deliberately working on him with those eyes. The canine mind is quite capable of disapproval. I took my own dog almost everywhere with me, but if I left him at home to take Helen to the cinema he would lie under our bed, sulking, and, when he emerged, would studiously ignore us for an hour or two.

  I quailed when Humphrey told me he had decided to have Myrtle mated because I knew that the ensuing pregnancy would be laden with harassment for me.

  That was how it turned out. The little man flew into a series of alcoholic panics, all of them unfounded, and he discovered imaginary symptoms in Myrtle at regular intervals throughout the nine weeks.

  I was vastly relieved when she gave birth to five healthy pups. Now, I thought, I would get some peace. The fact was that I was just about tired of Humphrey’s nocturnal nonsense. I have always made a point of never refusing to turn out at night, but Humphrey had stretched this principle to breaking point. One of these times he would have to be told.

  The crunch came when the pups were a few weeks old. I had had a terrible day, starting with a prolapsed uterus in a cow at 5 A.M. and progressing through hours of road slogging, missed meals and a late-night wrestle with ministry forms, some of which I suspected I had filled up wrongly.

  My clerical incompetence has always infuriated me and when I crawled, dog-tired, into bed, my mind was still buzzing with frustration. I lay for a long time, trying to put those forms away from me, and it was well after midnight when I fell asleep.

  I have always had a silly fancy that our practice knew when I desperately wanted a full night’s sleep. It knew and gleefully stepped in. When the phone exploded in my ear, I wasn’t really surprised.

  As I stretched a weary hand to the receiver, the luminous dial of the alarm clock read 1:15 A.M.

  “Hello,” I grunted.

  “Oooh … oooh … oooh!” The reply was only too familiar.

  I clenched my teeth. This was just what I needed. “Humphrey! What is it this time?”

  “Oh, Jim, Myrtle’s really dyin’, I know she is. Come quick, lad, come quick!”

  “Dying?” I took a couple of rasping breaths. “How do you make that out?”

  “Well … she’s stretched out on ’er side, tremblin’.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Aye, t’missus said Myrtle’s been lookin’ worried and walkin’ stiff when she let her out in the garden this afternoon. I’m not long back from Redcar, ye see.”

  “So you’ve been to the races, eh?”

  “That’s right … neglectin’ me dog. I’m a scamp, nothin’ but a scamp.”

  I closed my eyes in the darkness. There was no end to Humphrey’s imaginary symptoms. Trembling, this time, looking worried, walking stiff. We’d had panting and twitching and head nodding and ear shaking—what would it be next?

  But enough was enough. “Look, Humphrey,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with your dog. I’ve told you again and again …”

  “Oh, Jim, lad, don’t be long. Oooh-hooo!”

  “I’m not coming, Humphrey.”

  “Nay, nay, don’t say that! She’s goin’ fast, I tell ye!”

  “I really mean it. It’s just wasting my time and your money, so go to bed. Myrtle will be fine.”

  As I lay quivering between the sheets, I realised that refusing to go out was an exhausting business. There was no doubt in my mind that it would have taken less out of me to get up and attend another charade at Cedar House than to say no for the first time in my life. But this couldn’t go on. I had to make a stand.

  I was still tormented by remorse when I fell into an uneasy slumber, and it is a good thing that the subconscious mind works on during sleep because with the