As Chum refused to do the journey across London by himself, I met him at Liverpool Street.  He came up in a crate; the world must have seemed very small to him on the way.  “Hallo, old ass,” I said to him through the bars, and in the little space they gave him he wriggled his body with delight.  “Thank Heaven there’s one of ’em alive,” he said.

“I think this is my dog,” I said to the guard, and I told him my name.

He asked for my card.

“I’m afraid I haven’t one with me,” I explained.  When policemen touch me on the shoulder and ask me to go quietly; when I drag old gentlemen from underneath motor-’buses, and they decide to adopt me on the spot; on all the important occasions when one really wants a card, I never have one with me.

“Can’t give him up without proof of identity,” said the guard, and Chum grinned at the idea of being thought so valuable.

I felt in my pockets for letters.  There was only one, but it offered to lend me L10,000 on my note of hand alone.  It was addressed to “Dear Sir,” and though I pointed out to the guard that I was the “Sir,” he still kept tight hold of Chum.  Strange that one man should be prepared to trust me with L10,000, and another should be so chary of confiding to me a small black spaniel.

“Tell the gentleman who I am,” I said imploringly through the bars.  “Show him you know me.”

“He’s really all right,” said Chum, looking at the guard with his great honest brown eyes.  “He’s been with us for years.”

And then I had an inspiration.  I turned down the inside pocket of my coat; and there, stitched into it, was the label of my tailor’s with my name written on it.  I had often wondered why tailors did this; obviously they know how stupid guards can be.

“I suppose that’s all right,” said the guard reluctantly.  Of course I might have stolen the coat.  I see his point.

“You—­you wouldn’t like a nice packing case for yourself?” I said timidly.  “You see, I thought I’d put Chum on the lead.  I’ve got to take him to Paddington, and he must be tired of his shell by now.  It isn’t as if he were really an armadillo.”

The guard thought he would like a shilling and a nice packing case.  Wood, he agreed, was always wood, particularly in winter, but there were times when you were not ready for it.

“How are you taking him?” he asked, getting to work with a chisel.  “Underground?”

“Underground?” I cried in horror.  “Take Chum on the Underground?  Take—­Have you ever taken a large live conger-eel on the end of a string into a crowded carriage?”

The guard never had.

“Well, don’t.  Take him in a taxi instead.  Don’t waste him on other people.”

The crate yawned slowly, and Chum emerged all over straw.  We had an anxious moment, but the two of us got him down and put the lead on him.  Then Chum and I went off for a taxi.