CHAPTER II
THE NEW YORK DOG AND CAT CLUB
"He really is an accommodating old fellow, isn't he," said Billy, "toleave us out all night? It will save him a broken shed door, though hewill never know it."
"What time do you suppose it is?" asked Stubby.
"From the height of the moon I should say it must be about half pastten," answered Button.
"That will give us an hour and a half to think up what we are going totalk about at the club to-night. What are you going to tell them,Billy?" said Stubby.
"I really don't know. Guess I will wait for the inspiration of themoment."
"You better think up something extra exciting. Why not tell them aboutthe time you were blown out of the trenches and lost a piece of yourtail? Or, better yet, when you broke into the German headquarters andbutted the great Hindenburg himself," advised Button.
"Very well, I will, as probably that would be as interesting asanything I could recount. What are you two fellows going to relate tothem?"
"I think I shall tell them about our trip on the canal boat inFrance," replied Button.
"And I plan to describe to them the Dog Hospital and tell how it wasblown up by the Germans," added Stubby.
"It is quite an idea," said Billy, "their having a club like this. Itkeeps them in touch with all that goes on throughout the wholecountry. I am quite anxious to see what it is like."
As the hands of the clock in the Ferry station pointed to twelve, theyheard a loud meow and looking up they saw the big cat that had firstappeared to them sitting on the fence.
"Well, friends, here I am! Are you ready to start?"
"All ready!" replied Billy.
"But how are you to get out?"
"We will show you," said Stubby, whereupon Billy hopped up on thepacking box and from it onto the roof of the shed and then jumped downinto the alley.
"Very cleverly done!" commended the cat, whose name, by the way, wasTiger because he was striped like one. "But what puzzles me is howyour friends are to get out as the jump is too high for them."
"Too high for them, did you say? Nothing is too high for a dog thathas done police duty in France. Listen! Did you not hear something hitthe fence and then the scratch of nails on the boards? Well, that ismy friend Stubby running up the side of the fence. From the sounds,evidently he did not get enough of a running start and fell back. Buthere he comes! See his head appearing over the top?"
In a second Stubby appeared, balancing himself on the ridge of thefence. The next moment he stood beside them. At the same time Buttonalso ran down a post of the fence.
"Now we are all here, we'll have to hurry to allow for having to stopto hide when we see watchmen and strange dogs. Not knowing any of ourmembers, you will have to be careful not to attack them, thinking theyare enemies. I will give you the password. It is three short, sharpbarks. On seeing another dog, all our members bark this password andif the dog they bark at does not reply in like manner, they know it isa stray dog. The cats all give three caterwauls in the same manner."
"Oh," exclaimed Button, "here comes a brute of a bulldog, whose mouthlooks as if it were just watering for the back of a cat. Unless hegives the password quickly I shall take no chance but run up thistree. I am willing to tackle almost any dog but a bulldog."
"Bow! Wow! Wow!" barked the bulldog as he approached them.
"Bow! Wow! Wow!" replied Stubby, while Billy baaed, "Baa! Baa! Baa!"and Button meowed, "Mew! Mew! Mew!"
By this time the bulldog had come up to them and Tiger introducedthem, telling the dog what distinguished friends he was meeting.
They found him most agreeable and that his looks really belied him,just as the appearance of many persons does. As they all trotted alongtoward the big warehouse down by the dock, Stubby and the bulldog ranside by side, while Billy and the two cats ran on ahead. PresentlyStubby barked: "Oh, Billy! What do you think? Our new friend here sayshe is the full brother of Boozer, the bulldog that belonged to CaptainPercy, and that he was in the Dog Hospital at the same time we werethere, laid up with a broken leg."
"The world is small after all. To think we should meet over here justafter seeing your brother in France!"
"Hiss!" warned Tiger. "No more talking until we are inside thebuilding. We are approaching the warehouse now and we must not letthe watchmen see us. The only way we can get in is through a window inthe basement that has been left open by mistake. There is a broadplank running from the window down to the floor that the men use withtheir wheelbarrows to carry out the dirt. It makes it very handy toget out. We all could jump down, but few of our club members can jumpup so high. None of us can jump like Stubby here."
"Bow-wow!" barked the bulldog in a low voice as a man with a lanternturned into the alley down which they all were running. "Hide quicklyuntil he passes!"
As the man passed them, they heard him muttering to himself: "I neversaw so many cats and dogs in my life as I have seen to-night in thisalley. I did not know there were so many in the world! And when I getup to where I saw them they are all gone--disappeared--vamoosed. Theymust be the ghosts of the dead and gone dogs and cats that used tolive in the warehouse."
Just then the bulldog, whose name was Buster, sneezed, which sostartled the man that he ran as if he had been shot.
"Nice brave watchmen they have!" said Billy.
"Plague take my nose!" said Buster. "It is so short and stubby thatall the dust gets into it and to save my life I can't help sneezing.And I always do it at the most inopportune moment."
Just then a whistle sounded, and Tiger said, "We must hurry! Theregoes the twelve o'clock whistle at the factory down the river. It isthe signal for the night shift to come on."
The warehouse being near where they were, in about five minutes theyfound themselves entering the low window Buster had spoken about. Whenthey looked inside, it was pitch dark and as if they were looking intoa coal pit. But their eyes being such that they could see in the dark,they had no trouble in walking the plank and soon found themselves onthe floor of the cellar. It looked a black square in shape and therewas absolutely nothing in it, Tiger said. Still in the distance theycould see black shapes moving about.
"What in the world is over in that corner?" asked Billy.
"Oh, they are only wharf rats," replied Tiger. "Shall we charge downon them just for fun?"
"Say we do! But I hate rats as I do poison," said Billy.
"So do I, but they are our natural enemies," answered Tiger.
"Ours too," from Stubby.
"You stand and watch the fun, while we rat haters kill a few,"suggested Tiger.
"Very well!"
"When I say _three_, all of you run for the bunch and kill as many asyou can," instructed Tiger.
For the next ten minutes you never in all your life heard suchsquealing, snarling and snipping of teeth as there was in that cellar.Two unusually big cats and two dogs all bound to kill rats werefighting these fierce wharf rats. But what made the battle such abloody one was that wharf rats are braver than house rats and willfight to the death when attacked. Being large, and having long, sharpteeth, more often than not they get the better of ordinary cats anddogs that are sicked on them. In less than fifteen minutes hundreds ofrats had been killed, for Buster was a noted rat killer. All he didwas to open his jaws, grab a rat in the middle of its back, give hishead a shake and the rat's back was broken. Then he tossed that rataside and served another one likewise.
The rats had all disappeared or else were lying dead in heaps whenBilly heard Stubby give a whine of pain, and turning to discover wherehe was, he saw him standing in the midst of a pile of dead rats withone nearly half as large as himself hanging to his throat under hisjaw. The rat had hold of Stubby in such a way he could not shake himoff, and all the time the rat was sucking his blood.
Billy saw him in a minute and with one bound he was beside Stubby andhad ripped the rat open with his long, sharp horn, which made itsmouth open and set Stubby free.
"Thank
you, old fellow, for saving me! I was almost gone when you camewith your timely assistance."
"I guess we have had enough fun with rats for one night," said Tiger,"and we better be getting on or we will be late for the openingexercises."
"I am a perfect mess!" said Stubby in disgust. "See how bloody I am."
"So am I," replied Tiger.
"I too," chimed in Button.
"I tell you what let's do," proposed Stubby. "It won't take fiveminutes. Let's run out and take a swim in the river. I can neverappear before a strange audience with my coat looking like this."
"I'll go with you," replied Buster.
"I think," said Button, "I would prefer cleaning my coat by rolling inthat nice clean bank of sand in the corner of the cellar to swimmingin the river."
"I am with you on that proposition," said Tiger. "No water for me whenI can get good, clean sand! After a roll I shall come out as clean andshining as if I had been sent to the cleaner and run through a vat ofgasoline."
Stubby and Buster went to the river and were soon swimming around andhaving great sport in the water as it was nice and warm. But presentlyStubby stopped short and stared ahead of him, and what do you think hesaw but a whole drove of rats swimming out to a big sea-going vesselthat lay at anchor in the harbor.
"Let's go ashore. I've seen all the rats I want to see for a coon'sage. And you can't get me out of here too soon for they may attackus."
Soon Stubby and Buster, looking as clean as whistles, found Button andTiger who also looked spick and span, and the four entered theclubroom, which was on one of the upper floors and as light as day forthe light from four big electric street lamps came streaming in thewindow, lighting the room from corner to corner and making it asbright as if the lamps were in the room itself. And what a sight wasthere! Hundreds of dogs and cats were there sitting on benchesarranged in a semicircle and graduated like the seats in a theater.For this room had been used as a lecture room to give instructions tosailors and soldiers before going overseas, and the benches andplatform were just as they had left them.
On the platform, sitting upon their hind legs on chairs one could seeevery specie of dog from the Eskimo dog of the North to the tinyhairless dog of the tropics. There were big dogs, little dogs,middle-sized dogs, and cats of all sizes, colors and breeds. Thesnow-white Angora was there as well as the mangy alley cat. But allwere on an equal at these meetings and there was no quarreling betweenaristocrat and the animal with no pedigree. All was harmony there.Could only the human race be as harmonious as these animals, theBrotherhood of Man would be established.
One after another the cats and dogs went on the platform and eithertold some funny episode that had happened to them or some tragedy thathad occurred where they lived, or else they described the country fromwhich they had come, and told how the natives lived.