第27章 THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER(2)

Then Jip went to the Doctor and said, "Ask the boy if he has anything in his pockets that belonged to his uncle, will you, please?"

So the Doctor asked him. And the boy showed them a gold ring which he wore on a piece of string around his neck because it was too big for his finger. He said his uncle gave it to him when they saw the pirates coming.

Jip smelt the ring and said, "That's no good. Ask him if he has anything else that belonged to his uncle."

Then the boy took from his pocket a great, big red handkerchief and said, "This was my uncle's too."

As soon as the boy pulled it out, Jip shouted, "SNUFF, by Jingo!--Black Rappee snuff.

Don't you smell it? His uncle took snuff--Ask him, Doctor."

The Doctor questioned the boy again; and he said, "Yes. My uncle took a lot of snuff."

"Fine!" said Jip. "The man's as good as found. 'Twill be as easy as stealing milk from a kitten. Tell the boy I'll find his uncle for him in less than a week. Let us go upstairs and see which way the wind is blowing."

"But it is dark now," said the Doctor. "You can't find him in the dark!"

"I don't need any light to look for a man who smells of Black Rappee snuff," said Jip as he climbed the stairs. "If the man had a hard smell, like string, now--or hot water, it would be different. But SNUFF!--Tut, tut!"

"Does hot water have a smell?" asked the Doctor.

"Certainly it has," said Jip. "Hot water smells quite different from cold water. It is warm water--or ice--that has the really difficult smell. Why, I once followed a man for ten miles on a dark night by the smell of the hot water he had used to shave with--for the poor fellow had no soap.... Now then, let us see which way the wind is blowing. Wind is very important in long-distance smelling. It mustn't be too fierce a wind--and of course it must blow the right way. A nice, steady, damp breeze is the best of all.... Ha!--This wind is from the North."

Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he started muttering to himself, "Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed--No, my mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes-- hundreds of 'em--cubs; and--"

"Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?" asked the Doctor.

"Why, of course!" said Jip. "And those are only a few of the easy smells--the strong ones.

Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in the head. Wait now, and I'll tell you some of the harder scents that are coming on this wind --a few of the dainty ones."

Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.

For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.

"Bricks," he whispered, very low--"old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden- wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove- cote--or perhaps a granary--with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau- drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses' drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting through the rotting leaves; and--and--and--"

"Any parsnips?" asked Gub-Gub.

"No," said Jip. "You always think of things to eat. No parsnips whatever. And no snuff-- plenty of pipes and cigarettes, and a few cigars.

But no snuff. We must wait till the wind changes to the South."

"Yes, it's a poor wind, that," said Gub-Gub.

"I think you're a fake, Jip. Who ever heard of finding a man in the middle of the ocean just by smell! I told you you couldn't do it."

"Look here," said Jip, getting really angry.

"You're going to get a bite on the nose in a min- ute! You needn't think that just because the Doctor won't let us give you what you deserve, that you can be as cheeky as you like!"

"Stop quarreling!" said the Doctor--"Stop it! Life's too short. Tell me, Jip, where do you think those smells are coming from?"

"From Devon and Wales--most of them," said Jip--"The wind is coming that way."

"Well, well!" said the Doctor. "You know that's really quite remarkable--quite. I must make a note of that for my new book. I wonder if you could train me to smell as well as that....

But no--perhaps I'm better off the way I am.

`Enough is as good as a feast,' they say.

Let's go down to supper. I'm quite hungry."

"So am I," said Gub-Gub.