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.
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