I assure you that he'll catch no rat here."

"I'll be on the safe side," said Henry calmly.

And so it was settled. That very night Fussie supped off, not rats, but
terrapin and other delicacies in Henry's private sitting room.

[Illustration: _Photograph by Sarony_

AUGUSTIN DALY]

It was the 1888 tour, the great blizzard year, that Fussie was left
behind by mistake at Southampton. He jumped out at the station, just
outside where they stopped to collect tickets. After this long
separation, Henry naturally thought that the dog would go nearly mad
with joy when he saw him again. He described to me the meeting in a
letter:

"My dear Fussie gave me a terrible shock on Sunday night. When
we got in, J----, H----, and I dined at the Cafe Royale. I told
Walter to bring Fussie there. He did, and Fussie burst into the
room while the waiter was cutting some mutton, when, what d'ye
think--one bound at me--another instantaneous bound at the
mutton, and from the mutton nothing would get him until he'd got
his plateful.

"Oh what a surprise it was indeed! He never now will leave my
side, my legs, or my presence, but I cannot but think, alas, of
that seductive piece of mutton!"

_The Death of Fussie_

Poor Fussie! He met his death through the same weakness. It was at
Manchester, I think. A carpenter had thrown down his coat with a ham
sandwich in the pocket, over an open trap on the stage. Fussie, nosing
and nudging after the sandwich, fell through and was killed instantly.
When they brought up the dog after the performance, every man took his
hat off. Henry was not told until the end of the play. He took it so
very quietly that I was frightened, and said to his son Laurence, who
was on that tour:

"Do let's go to his hotel and see how he is."

We drove there and found him sitting, eating his supper, with the poor
dead Fussie, who would never eat supper any more, curled up in his rug
on the sofa. Henry was talking to the dog exactly as if it were alive.
The next day he took Fussie back in the train with him to London,
covered with a coat. He is buried in the dog's cemetery, Hyde Park.

His death made an enormous difference to Henry. Fussie was his constant
companion. When he died, Henry was really alone. He never spoke of what
he felt about it, but it was easy to know.

We used to get hints how to get this and that from watching Fussie. His
look, his way of walking! He _sang_