“Dammit, fifty quid!” cried Busto.
“I’m not considering money. If it were possible to help your dog, I would; but I can’t.”
“Dammit, a hundreda quid!” yelled Busto. “You tink I aina got no money? Hah! Look!” He dragged open his waistcoat.
“Nothing can be done. I’m sorry,” said the vet.
Busto rebuttoned his waistcoat. “So what you wanna do? Killum?”
“It’s the only merciful thing to do.”
“How mucha dat cost?”
“Mmmmm, five shillings.”
“But make ’im oright, dat aina possible?”
“Quite impossible.”
“Not for no money?”
“Not for all the money in the world.”
“Hooh! Well, what you want?”
“For my visit? Oh, well, I’ll say half a crown.”
“Go ’way,” said Busto, poking half a crown at him.
“The dog will only suffer if you let him live on like this. I really——”
“I give-a you money for cure. For killum? No.”
“I’ll do it for nothing, then. I can’t see the dog suffering——”
“You go ’way. Dissa my dog, hah? I killum! You go ’way, hah?” He approached the vet with such menace that the poor man backed out of the room. Busto poured another cup of red Lisbon, and drained it at once. “You!” he shouted to me, “Drink! . . . You, Mick! Drink!”
The wizened man helped himself to wine. Busto fumbled under one of the pillows on the bed, very gently in order not to disturb the dog, and dragged out a huge old French revolver.
“Hey!” I said. “What are you going to do?”
“Killum,” said Busto. He patted the dog’s head; then, with a set face, stooped and put the muzzle of the revolver to Ouif’s ear. With clenched teeth and contracted stomach-muscles, I waited for the explosion. But Busto lowered his weapon; thought for a moment, rose and swung round, all in the same movement, confronting the lithograph of Mona Lisa.
“Twenna-five quid ada Convent!” he shouted.
Mona Lisa still smiled inscrutably.
“Fifty!” cried Busto. He returned to the table, poured three more drinks, and emptied another cup. Nobody spoke. Fifteen minutes passed. Ouif, brought back to consciousness by pain, began to whine.
“No good,” said Busto. He clenched his teeth and again aimed at the dog’s head. “Gooda dog, hah? Lil Ouif, hmm?”
He pressed the trigger. There was a sharp click, nothing more. The revolver had misfired. The dog whined louder.
“I knoo a bloke,” said Mick, “a bloke what made money during the War aht o’ profiteerin’ on grub. Done everybody aht of everyfink, ’e did. So ’e ’as to live; this ’ere dawg ’as to die.”
The walls of the room seemed to be undulating in a pale mist; the wine burned my throat. Busto opened a third bottle, drank, and returned to the bed.
“You look aht you don’t spoil that there piller,” said Mick, “if you get what I mean.”
I shut my eyes tight. Out of a rickety, vinous darkness, there came again the brief click of the hammer on the second cartridge.
“Now, agen,” said Mick.
Click. . . . click. . . .
“For God’s sake call that vet back, and let him—”
“You minda you biz-ness, hah?”
“It’s ’is dawg. ’E’s got a right to kill ’is own dawg, ain’t ’e? Provided ’e ain’t cruel. Nah, go easy, Busto, go easy——”
I hunched myself together, with closed eyes.
Click, went the revolver.
“Last cartridge always goes orf,” said Mick. “Try once agen. ’Old yer gun low-er. . . . Nah, squeeeeeeze yer trigger——”
I pushed my fingers into my ears and tensed every muscle. The wine had put a raw edge on my sensibilities. I shut my eyes again and waited. I heard nothing but the pulsing of blood in my head. My fingers in my ears felt cold. I thought of the revolver-muzzle, and shuddered. Time stopped. The room spun like a top about me and the red Lisbon wine, the lunatic’s broth, drummed in my head like a boxer with a punching-ball—Ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta.
I opened my eyes. Busto was still kneeling by the bed. The revolver, still unfired, remained poised in his hand; but Ouif had ceased to whimper. He lay motionless, the petrified ruins of a dog.
“Anyway ’e die,” said Busto.
“Of ’is own accord,” said Mick. “Bleedn war-profiteers is still alive. So ’e ’as to die, if yer see what I mean.”
“Some people complain,” I said, “because men die and dogs go on living.”
Busto made an unpleasant noise, with his tongue between his lips: “Pthut! Men is rubbish. Dogs is good.”
He drank the last of the wine. Then, pensively raising the revolver, he cocked it and let the hammer fall. The last cartridge exploded with the crash of a cannon; the big bullet smacked into the ceiling, bringing down an avalanche of plaster; the revolver, loosely held, was plucked out of Busto’s hand by the recoil and fell with a tremendous clatter and jingle of broken crockery among the teacups. For a moment we all sat still, stunned with shock. The clean piercing smell of burnt gunpowder cut through the close atmosphere of the underground bedroom. Busto jumped to his feet, kicked over the table, jerked his elbows sideways in an indescribably violent gesture and, raising his fists to the ceiling, yelled:
“Ah, you! Death! Greedy pig! Wasn’t you a-belly full yet?”
Then he grew calm. He pointed to the body of Ouif and said to Mick: “Chucka disaway.”
“Where?”
“Dussbin.”
“Wot, ain’t yer goin’ to bury ’im?”
“Whagood dat do?” Busto turned to me, and made a familiar gesture. Raising his eyebrows and sticking out his chin, he pointed with the index finger of his left hand to the palm of his right, and uttered one sound:
“Hah?”
I remembered; paid him my rent, nine shillings and sixpence, and went up the creaking stairs to bed.
I should say, I suppose, that there was a great deal of good in Pio Busto—that a man who could love his dog must have something fine and generous somewhere in his soul. It may be so, but I doubt it. I said I feared him. That was because he was my landlord, and I had no money and knew that if I failed to pay my rent on Saturday I should be in the street on Sunday as surely as dawn follows night. How I detested him for his avarice, his greed, his little meannesses with soap, paint, and matches! Yet I admit that I felt a queer qualm of pity for him—that grimy, grasping, hateful little man—when he gave away cups of lizzie wine that night in the wash-house when the little dog Ouif lay dying in his bed. I don’t know . . . there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armor, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment.
I have met many men who inspired me with much more loathing than Busto, several of whom passed as jolly good fellows. It is terrible to think that, after the worst man you know, there must always be somebody still worse.
Then who is the last man?
The same applies to places. The insects at Busto’s drove me mad. But, say I had been at Fort Flea? You will not have heard the story of Fort Flea, for it was hushed up. I got it from a man who learned the facts through an account written by a Mr. de Pereyra, who knew the commanding officer. It went into the official reports under the heading of Fuerte di Pulce, I think.