CHASE AFTER DOG

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 846, 14 December 1929, Page 36

CHASE AFTER DOG

GIRL TAKES EX-FINANCE’S PET AIR, SEA AND LAND PURSUIT A man has traversed 7,000 miles of land and sea by ship, train, and airplane, consuls have been agitated, arguments have raged in two Mediterranean ports, and lives have been risked, all for the sake of Jimmie, a little wire-haired terrier from Bognor, says the London “Daily Express.” Jimmie had been loaped by his master to his fiancee to accompany her on a trip she was making to the East. Master was to go with him as far as Marseilles. Everything was perfect until the day before Jimmie’s ship, the British-India ‘liner Modasa, sailed. Then suddenly the girl broke off the engagement, and the trouble started. Jimmie’s master sailed in the ship because his passage was booked and he wanted to get his dog friend back. The girl had changed from first to second class and persuaded the captain to extract a promise from her former fiance that he would not attempt to speak to her as long as he was on board. Master was content with this, for Jimmie had to be exercised on deck, and they could at least see each other. Then, the day before they reached Marseilles, Jimmie chased a ball rather too vigorously and fell overboard. Master promptly jumped in the sea and rescued him. . Master later sent a letter to the girl from Marseilles by courier, asking for the return of the dog. He received a reply telling him to come and fetch it. He rushed to the ship, only to be informed by the captain that the ’girl had changed her mind. Argument followed argument, and after the ship had been delayed an hour, the young man was politely, but forcibly put ashore. He then determined to beat the ship to Port Said, and there make another attempt to recover Jimniie. He caught a train the same afternoon for Genoa, arriving there at 5 o’clock the next morning, and after some hours dashing about in a taxi-cab he found the manager of Imperial Airways, and asked for a passage in the next airplane to Alexandria. He was some pounds short of the fare, however, and so could only get a ticket to Tabruk, a remote town in Italian Libya. He took the risk and left by air, in the hope of being able to borrow the rest of the fare from a British consul. At Corfu he was fined for not having a visa. He borrowed enough money from the British Consul at Athens to carry him on in the airplane to Alexandria, whence he rushed by train to Port Said, arriving a day before the Modasa and in time to cable home for money. He boarded the liner, accompanied by the consul. A heated triangular argument followed between the captain, the young man, and the consul. The girl at first locked herself in the cabin and refused to speak even with the captain, but Jimmie’s master was so persistent that at last the dog was returned to his owner.