French Leave, by Leonora Blanche Alleyne

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The officer was so delighted with the poodle’s cleverness, that he went at once to the shoe-black, who confessed that the dog was his and that he had taught him this trick for the good of trade. The officer then proposed to buy the dog, and offered the shoe-black such a large sum that he agreed to part with his ‘bread-winner’. So the officer, who was returning at once to England, carried the dog, by coach and steamer to London, where he tied him up for some time, in order that he should forget all about his old life, and be ready to make himself happy in the new one.

When he was set free, however, the poodle seemed restless and ill at ease, and after two or three days he disappeared entirely. What he did then, nobody knows, but a fortnight after he had left the London house, he was found, steadily plying his old trade, on the Pont Henri Quatre.*

by Leonora Blanche Alleyne 1851-1933

From ‘The Animal Story Book’ (1914) edited by Andrew Lang (1844-1912). The text is by his wife, Leonora ‘Nora’ Blanche Alleyne (1851-1933).

* The Pont Royal over the River Seine in Paris.

Précis

It turned out that the shoe-black had taught the poodle to do this as a way of drumming up trade, which tickled the Englishman so much that he bought the dog and took him home to London. At the first opportunity, however, the dog bolted, and two weeks later he was spotted in Paris, up to his old tricks.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate her ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

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