The short story below cries out for an introduction laced with puns about dogs. I will resist that temptation and allow the tail itself to do the talking.
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Just Call Me Irish
By Richard Wilson
Published in Future Science Fiction, June 1958
The housing development near the university was newly finished. Salesman John F. (“Call Me Happy”) Horman had waited a week for the tenants to become settled before making the rounds with his sample electric rat trap and his order book.
He began at the southwest corner of the project and knocked at the first door. As it opened Happy went into his spiel. Toward the end of his second sentence, he skidded to a stop in the middle of a syllable when he realized he was talking to a dog. A female dog.
Happy was confused. “Is your master in?” he asked.
“Just a minute,” said the dog.
The door closed and Happy stared hard at it. Then it opened again. A larger dog stood there. “What can I do for you?” asked the larger dog.
“This is ridiculous,” said Happy. “When I asked that other dog if her master was in, I meant the master of the house, not her master.” He consulted the list of names of the families who lived in the project. “I was looking for a Mr. Setler.”
“Setter’s the name,” said the dog. “They misspelled it. I’m the master of the house. Is there something I can do for you?”
“I don’t know.” Happy Horman took off his glasses, wiped them, replaced them on his nose, replaced his handkerchief and looked at the large reddish animal in the doorway. “This is very strange. Are you a talking dog?”
“Obviously.” The dog swatted a fly with his tail. “Are you a talking man?”
“Why — yes.”
“Then why don’t you say something? Are you with the housing project? Because if you are, I wish you’d do something about the sink. It leaks. And my son Whiffet is getting tired of lapping up after it. Besides, I think it’s undignified.”
“Mr. — ah — Setter,” said Happy, mustering his faculties, “I represent the Ohm Electric Rat Trap Company. Our slogan is ‘No ‘ome should be without one.’”
He laughed emptily. “I think you’d be interested in a little demonstration I’d like to make for you. That is, I think you’d… ”
The door opened wider, and the dog who had first spoken to Happy appeared. “Irish, dear,” she said, “will you please come in or go out? The kennel’s getting cold.”
“House, Maureen, not kennel.”
“House, then. But why not ask the gentleman in?”
“Yes, won’t you come in, sir?” said Irish. “If you don’t mind the place being somewhat littered.”
Happy went in and sat on the edge of a normal wooden chair. He looked around with interest but so far as he could see the furnishings were those of an average dwelling. It did not look at all like a doghouse, though it unquestionably was a dog’s house.
Irish curled himself comfortably on a couch while Maureen excused herself, saying it was time the younger whelps were fed. “I’ll be glad when they’re weaned,” she said. Happy Horman blushed.
“Mr. Setter,” Happy said, “please forgive me if I seem curious, but just how — that is, why, uh — how come you’re living here?”
“Why not?” Irish said. “I’m eligible.”
“But I thought these houses were set aside for veterans?”
“I’m a veteran,” the dog said. “Want to see my honorable discharge from the K-9 Corps?”
“Oh. But you have to be a student, and you have to be married, I thought.”
“I am married, sir,” Irish said in a hard voice. “You don’t think I’m just living with the bitch, do you?”
Happy coughed in embarrassment. “Please, Mr. Setter, I meant to imply no such thing. But how can you be a student? At the university, that is? I realize that we’re all students of human nature, heh heh, you especially, of course, being a — a canine.”
“Dog is good enough. No need to get hifalutin. Would you like to hear the whole story?”
“Why, yes, I would.”
“It began about 1949,” Irish said, settling himself more comfortably. “My master (before I became my own) was Professor Neil Wendt, the big nuclear physics man on campus. Or should I call him the nuclear physics homo sapiens?” he asked archly. Happy laughed hollowly.
“I don’t fully understand, even now, what exactly Wendt was doing but I was his constant companion, his dumb animal friend. Then one day, as I reconstruct it, I was affected by radiation and when Wendt called me I said ‘Coming.’ Just like that. I don’t know who was more surprised, Wendt or me.
“After some preliminary confusion we sat down and talked the thing out. We found that we could be of considerable help to each other. I suggested a few improvements in his equipment, having had a dog’s eye view of it from underneath; though actually it made little difference because in a few weeks the Atomic Energy Commission took the whole thing over.
“In the meantime he went with me to the dean and with a little coaching I was able to pass the examinations and was awarded a bachelor’s degree. You a college man, sir?”
“Er, no,” Happy said.
“Um. Well, later, when I was working toward my master’s I realized there were more important things than books. I refer to the Korean War. So, as any red-blooded American dog would do, I enlisted.
“The K-9 Corps is a fine organization, in its limited way, and I was very quickly promoted to sergeant. But the caste system! Absolutely unfair. I had heard about openings in Officer Candidate School and inquired about them. My first sergeant laughed at me but by dogged persistence I got to see the regimental commander.
“He was sympathetic but had to refuse my application. Said there was nothing in the ARs about it. What a welter of dogma those army regulations are! So I was forced to finish out my army career as an enlisted dog. True, I finally made master sergeant — though they claimed it was stretching a point for a dog to become a master — but my hackles still rise when I think of the indignities I suffered under the myth of racial superiority. What a blow to one’s pride to be forced to write ‘animal’ opposite the word race, when almost everyone else was able to write ‘human.’ ” Irish glared so at Happy that the salesman winced.
“But that’s all over now, Mr. Setter,” Happy said. “And now you’re back at school. What field are you in?”
“Anthropology, of course,” Irish said. “But we’ve talked enough about me. What was it you had to show me, sir?”
“I really don’t think you’d be interested,” Happy said. “It’s something you certainly would have no use for. You see, it’s a rat catcher, and surely you of all ani — er, of all people, wouldn’t –”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t see why not. I suppose you might argue that I’m perfectly capable of catching rats myself. It’s true that I’m still a young dog, but I don’t have the time for sport that I used to. Suppose I take a look at your model.”
Relieved to be in action again, the salesman rose and plugged in the cord of his electric rat trap. With a rubber rat he demonstrated its possibilities.
“Well, I’ll be doggoned,” Irish said. “Maureen, come in and look at this gadget.”
The female dog (as Happy preferred to think of her) came in. She also marveled at its efficiency.
“Let’s get one, Irish,” she said. “It’ll save us an awful lot of work.”
“I think I will,” Irish said. “If you’ll make out an order for us, sir? That’s fine. Just put the pen in my teeth and I’ll sign it. There.”
Happy handed over the receipt, discreetly wiped the doggy saliva from his pen and prepared to go.
“Drop in any time,” Irish said. “You might like to come in some evening and tear a bone with us.”
Happy forced a chuckle. “You’re quite a wag, Mr. Setter,” he said daringly, and was relieved when his customer broke into a barking laugh and closed the door after him.
Happy Horman took several deep breaths of air, then turned back to look at the house. No one was visible behind its windows. He looked at his order book. There was the bold signature: I. Setter.
He shook his head, shrugged and went to the next house. He knocked. A fat young man opened the door.
“I beg your pardon,” Happy said, “but is your dog in?”
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