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Without Prepimpin he felt lost, like a man in a sculling race with only one oar. He took off his make-up and dressed, a very much worried man. Of course he could obtain another trained dog without much difficulty, and the special training would not take long; but he would have to love the animal in order to establish that perfect partnership which was essential to his performance.
He bent down again and took Prepimpin in his arms and strode with him through the group of motorists and the little clamouring crowd that had gathered round. One of the former, a girl in a blue motor veil, ran after him and touched his arm. Her eyes were full of tears. "It breaks my heart to see you like that. Oh can't I do anything for you?" Andrew looked at her.
The dog pulls a hidden string and Petit Patou is clad in a bottle green dress-coat. Prepimpin barks and dances his delight. "But nom d'un chien, I can't go to a ball without a hat." Prepimpin bolts to the wings and returns with an opera hat. "And a stick." Prepimpin brings the stick. "And a cigar."
And how could he love any other dog than Prepimpin? He felt that he would hate the well-meaning but pretentious hound. He went out filled with anxieties and repugnances. Elodie was waiting for him by the stage door. She said: "You got out of the difficulty marvellously." "But it was nothing like the performance you saw yesterday." "Ah non" she replied frankly. "Voila," said he, dejectedly.
Andrew carried the bleeding body of Prepimpin, and there was that in his face which forbade the idle to trail indiscreetly about his path. He strode on, staring ahead, and did not notice a woman by the pylon of the bridge who, as he passed, gave a bewildered gasp, and after a few undecided moments, followed him at a distance.
But she did not perceive and poor child, how could she? that given the dominating influence over any combination, even over one poodle dog, he held the key of success. So we see him, the born leader, unconscious of his powers for lack of opportunity, instinctively craving their exercise for his own spiritual and moral evolution, and employing them in the benign mastery of the dog Prepimpin.
Prepimpin rushes to a little table at the back of the stage and on his hind legs offers a box of cigars to his master, who selects one and lights it. He begins the old juggler's trick of the three objects. The dog sits on his haunches and watches him.
Andrew knelt down, planted his fingers in the lion shagginess of mane above his ears and said in the French which Prepimpin understood: "We're going to be good friends, eh? You're not going to play me any dirty tricks? You're going to be a good and very faithful colleague?" "You mustn't spoil him," said the vendor, foreseeing, according to his lights, possible future recriminations.
Elodie's breast heaved and her face grew pallid beneath its heavy paint, but her eyes were bright. "Allons toujours," Andrew whispered. But in the famous cigar act he missed, for the first time since the far off rehearsals after the death of Prepimpin, when the fault was due to Elodie's lack of skill. But now, she threw it fair. It was he who missed. The lighted cigar smote him on the cheek.
From Paris, after this particular meeting with Bakkus, Andrew once more goes on tour with Prepimpin. But a Prepimpin grown old, and, though pathetically eager, already past effective work. Nine years of strenuous toil are as much as any dog can stand. Rheumatism twinged the hind legs of Prepimpin. Desire for slumber stupefied his sense of duty.
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