Question

Is the narrator as rich as Tricki’s mistress?

Answer 1

Though not clearly stated, there are instances in the story which suggest that the narrator is not as rich as Tricki’s mistress, Mrs Pumphrey.

While the narrator is able to provide Tricki with a warm loose box as a bed, at Mrs Pumphrey’s house, Tricki has a day bed, a night bed, cushions, toys, rubber rings, a breakfast bowl, a lunch bowl, a supper bowl, a whole wardrobe of tweed coats and perhaps many more things.

When he arrives to take the dog with him, Mrs Pumphrey has her entire staff at her disposal to transfer all of Tricki’s belongings to the doctor’s car.

On hearing from the doctor about Tricki’s gradual recovery, Mrs Pumphrey sends along two dozen eggs at a time, along with bottles of wine and brandy—all in order to help in Tricki’s speedy recovery.

Finally, when she calls upon the narrator to take her recovered dog back home, she comes in a chauffer-driven “thirty feet of gleaming black metal” (an obvious reference to a limousine).

All these instances point to the fact that Mrs Pumphrey lived a luxurious life.