ppy. He is an ignorant fool. He might have
entered the convent of nuns and had a fine time, but instead he steps
off the pavement into the road, the road being a vast and interesting
continent imperfectly explored. His confidence in his nose, in his
agility, and in the goodness of God is touching, absolutely painful to
witness. He glances casually at a huge, towering vermilion construction
that is whizzing towards him on four wheels, preceded by a glint of
brass and a wisp of steam; and then with disdain he ignores it as less
important than a mere speck of odorous matter in the mud. The next
instant he is lying inert in the mud. His confidence in the goodness of
God had been misplaced. Since the beginning of time God had ordained him
a victim.

An impressive thing happens. The motor-bus reluctantly slackens and
stops. Not the differential brake, nor the foot-brake, has arrested the
motor-bus, but the invisible brake of public opinion, acting by
administrative transmission. There is not a policeman in sight.
Theoretically, the motor-'bus is free to whiz onward in its flight to
the paradise of Shoreditch, but in practice it is paralysed by dread. A
man in brass buttons and a stylish cap leaps down from it, and the
blackened demon who sits on its neck also leaps down from it, and they
move gingerly towards the puppy. A little while ago the motor-bus might
have overturned a human cyclist or so, and proceeded nonchalant on its
way. But now even a puppy requires a post-mortem: such is the force of
public opinion aroused. Two policemen appear in the distance.

"A street accident" is now in being, and a crowd gathers with calm joy
and stares, passive and determined. The puppy offers no sign whatever;
just lies in the road. Then a boy, destined probably to a great future
by reason of his singular faculty of initiative, goes to the puppy and
carries him by the scruff of the neck, to the shelter of the gutter.
Relinquished by the boy, the lithe puppy falls into an easy horizontal
attitude, and seems bent upon repose. The boy lifts the puppy's head to
examine it, and the head drops back wearily. The puppy is dead. No cry,
no blood, no disfigurement! Even no perceptible jolt of the wheel as it
climbed over the obstacle of the puppy's body! A wonderfully clean and
perfect accident!

The increasing crowd stares with beatific placidity. People emerge
impatiently from the bowels of the throbbing motor-bus and slip down
from its back,