Dogsbody Read Online Free Page B

feeding and housing him. But only Kathleen and Robin appreciated his courtesy. The rest said, “Must that creature thump like that?” and at other times there was a general outcry.
    There were times when that tail seemed to have a life of its own. When he was trotting around the house, Sirius normally carried it arched upward in a crescent and forgot about it. He dimly thought, in that cloudy part of his mind, that he could not always have had a tail, because he never remembered it until it was too late. If the least thing happened to excite him, if Robin started to dance about, or Kathleen came in from shopping, Sirius would bound jovially forward and his tail would go whipping round and round in circles, hitting everything in its path. Ornaments came off low tables and broke. Cats were battered this way and that. Papers flew about. Basil’s fossils were scattered. The next thing he knew, a cat was scratching him, or a strong arm was beating him. He was beaten oftener for wagging his tail than he was over house-training. One of the most constant memories he had of those early days was of lying aching and ashamed under the sideboard, while Kathleen, often in tears, cleared up a breakage or another kind of mess. Duffie was always looming above her.
    “I warn you, Kathleen. If that creature ever gets into my shop, I shall have it destroyed.” Her cold voice was so menacing that Sirius always shivered.
    The shop took up the two rooms in the front of the house. Duffie spent most of every day in it, either making odd whirrings and clatterings in the nearest room or talking to all the people who came in and out in the room farthest away, which opened on the street. These people were mostly women with loud voices, who all called the owner Duffie. If Duffie happened to be in the living room looming over Kathleen when they came, they would stand and shout, “What-ho, Duffie! It’s me!” until Duffie came.
    Now, in those days, Sirius’s whole world was the house and the yard behind it. The shop left very little of the world downstairs over, so he was naturally curious to see into this shop. He was naturally curious anyway. Kathleen often said, “I know they say
Curiosity killed the cat
, but it ought to be
killed the dog
. Get your nose out, Leo.” Sirius made a number of attempts to poke his blunt, inquiring nose around the door that led to the shop. Duffie always stopped him. Mostly she kicked at him with a sandaled foot. Sometimes she hit him with a broom. And once she slammed the door against his nose, which hurt him considerably. But he kept on trying. It was not that the dusty, clayey smell from beyond the door was particularly pleasing, or that he wanted to be with Duffie. It was that he felt he was being cheated of the greater part of his world. Besides, the cats were allowed inside, and he was rapidly becoming very jealous of those cats.
    By this time, it would have been hard to say whether the cats were more jealous of Sirius than he of them. He envied the cats their delicacy and disdain, the ease with which they leaped to places far out of his reach and the way they came and went so secretly. He could not go anywhere or do anything without somebody noticing.The cats, on their part, disliked him for being a dog, for being new and for taking up everyone’s attention.
    They were three rather neglected cats. Until Kathleen came, no one except Duffie had taken any notice of them at all. Duffie, from time to time, took it into her head that she loved cats. When this happened, she would seize a struggling cat, hold it against her smock and announce, “Diddumsdiddy, Mother loves a pussy then!”
    Romulus and Remus, who were twin tabbies, both escaped from this treatment as soon as they could fight loose. But Tibbles bore it. She had an affectionate nature, and even this seemed better to her than total neglect. Tibbles was an elegant cat, mostly white, with a fine tabby patch on her back, and worthy of better