Now, Andrew led such a luxurious life that you might have thought he was the Shah of Persia in disguise. He slept on a silk pillow in Miss Lark’s room; he went by car to the Hairdresser’s twice a week to be shampooed; he had cream for every meal and sometimes oysters, and he possessed four overcoats with checks and stripes in different colours. Andrew’s ordinary days were filled with the kind of things most people have only on birthdays. And when Andrew himself had a birthday he had two candles on his cake for every year, instead of only one.
The effect of all this was to make Andrew very much disliked in the neighbourhood. People used to laugh heartily when they saw Andrew sitting up in the back seat of Miss Lark’s car on the way to the Hairdresser’s, with the fur rug over his knees and his best coat on. And on the day when Miss Lark bought him two pairs of small leather boots so that he could go out in the Park wet or fine, everybody in the Lane came down to their front gates to watch him go by and to smile secretly behind their hands.
“Pooh!” said Michael, as they were watching Andrew one day through the fence that separated Number Seventeen from Next Door. “Pooh, he’s a ninkypoop!”
“How do you know?” asked Jane, very interested.
“I know because I heard Daddy call him one this morning!” said Michael, and he laughed at Andrew very rudely.
“He is not a nincompoop,” said Mary Poppins. “And that is that.”
And Mary Poppins was right. Andrew wasn’t a nincompoop, as you will very soon see.
You must not think he did not respect Miss Lark. He did. He was even fond of her in a mild sort of way. He couldn’t help having a kindly feeling for somebody who had been so good to him ever since he was a puppy, even if she did kiss him rather too often. But there was no doubt about it that the life Andrew led bored him to distraction. He would have given half his fortune, if he had one, for a nice piece of raw, red meat, instead of the usual breast of chicken or scrambled eggs with asparagus.
For in his secret, innermost heart, Andrew longed to be a common dog. He never passed his pedigree (which hung on the wall in Miss Lark’s drawing room) without a shudder of shame. And many a time he wished he’d never had a father, nor a grandfather, nor a great-grandfather, if Miss Lark was going to make such a fuss of it.
It was this desire of his to be a common dog that made Andrew choose common dogs for his friends. And whenever he got the chance, he would run down to the front gate and sit there watching for them, so that he could exchange a few common remarks. But Miss Lark, when she discovered him, would be sure to call out:
“Andrew, Andrew, come in, my darling! Come away from those dreadful street arabs!”
And of course Andrew would have to come in, or Miss Lark would shame him by coming out and bringing him in. And Andrew would blush and hurry up the steps so that his friends should not hear her calling him her Precious, her Joy, her Little Lump of Sugar.
Andrew’s most special friend was more than common, he was a Byword. He was half an Airedale and half a Retriever and the worst half of both. Whenever there was a fight in the road he would be sure to be in the thick of it; he was always getting into trouble with the Postman or the Policeman, and there was nothing he loved better than sniffing about in drains or garbage tins. He was, in fact, the talk of the whole street, and more than one person had been heard to say thankfully that they were glad he was not their dog.
But Andrew loved him and was continually on the watch for him. Sometimes they had only time to exchange a sniff in the Park, but on luckier occasions – though these were very rare – they would have long talks at the gate. From his friend, Andrew heard all the town gossip, and you could see by the rude way in which the other dog laughed as he told it, that it wasn’t very complimentary.
Then suddenly, Miss Lark’s voice would be heard calling from a window, and the other dog would get up, loll out his tongue at Miss Lark, wink at Andrew and wander off, waving his hindquarters as he went just to show that he didn’t care.
Andrew, of course, was never allowed outside the gate unless he went with Miss Lark for a walk in the Park, or with one of the maids to have his toes manicured.
Imagine, then, the surprise of Jane and Michael when they saw Andrew, all alone, careering past them through the Park, with his ears back and his tail up as though he were on the track of a tiger.
Mary Poppins pulled the perambulator up with a jerk, in case Andrew, in his wild flight, should upset it and the Twins. And Jane and Michael screamed at him as he passed.
“Hi, Andrew! Where’s your overcoat?” cried Michael, trying to make a high, windy voice like Miss Lark’s.
“Andrew, you naughty little boy!’ said Jane, and her voice, because she was a girl, was much more like Miss Lark’s.
But Andrew just looked at them both very haughtily and barked sharply in the direction of Mary Poppins.
“Yay-yap!” said Andrew several times very quickly.
“Let me see. I think it’s the first on your right and second house on the left-hand side,” said Mary Poppins.
“Yap?” said Andrew.
“No – no garden. Only a back yard. Gate’s usually open.”
Andrew barked again.
“I’m not sure,” said Mary Poppins. “But I should think so. Generally goes home at tea time.”
Andrew flung back his head and set off again at a gallop.
Jane’s eyes and Michael’s were round as saucers with surprise.
“What was he saying?” they demanded breathlessly, both together.
“Just passing the time of day!” said Mary Poppins, and shut her mouth tightly as though she did not intend any more words to escape from it. John and Barbara gurgled from their perambulator.
“He wasn’t!” said Michael.
“He couldn’t have been!” said Jane.
“Well, you know best, of course. As usual,” said Mary Poppins haughtily.
“He must have been asking you where somebody lived, I’m sure he must—” Michael began.
“Well, if you know, why bother to ask me?” said Mary Poppins sniffing. “I’m no dictionary.”
“Oh, Michael,” said Jane, “she’ll never tell us if you talk like that. Mary Poppins, do say what Andrew was saying to you, please.”
“Ask him. He knows – Mr Know-All!” said Mary Poppins, nodding her head scornfully at Michael.
“Oh no, I don’t. I promise I don’t, Mary Poppins. Do tell.”
“Half past three. Tea time,” said Mary Poppins, and she wheeled the perambulator round and shut her mouth tight again as though it were a trap door. She did not say another word all the way home.
Jane dropped behind with Michael.
“It’s your fault!” she said. “Now we’ll never know.”
“I don’t care!” said Michael, and he began to push his scooter very quickly. “I don’t want to know.”
But he did want to know very badly indeed. And as it turned out, he and Jane and everybody else knew all about it before tea time.
Just as they were about to cross the road to their own house, they heard loud cries coming from Next Door, and there they saw a curious sight. Miss Lark’s two maids were rushing wildly about the garden, looking under bushes and up into the trees as people do who have lost their most valuable possession. And there was Robertson Ay, from Number Seventeen, busily wasting his time by poking at the gravel on Miss Lark’s path with a broom as though he expected to find the missing treasure under a pebble. Miss Lark herself was running about in her garden, waving her arms and calling: “Andrew, Andrew! Oh, he’s lost. My darling boy is lost! We must send for the Police. I must see the Prime Minister. Andrew is lost! Oh dear! Oh dear!”