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Flush was a red cocker spaniel of good breeding whose puppyhood was passed in the pleasant English countryside near Reading. Before he was out of his doggy teens he had tasted the pleasures of love and was a father. Then his owner, Miss Mitford, gave him to her invalid friend, Elizabeth Barrett. In his new mistress's home, on London's genteel Wimpole Street, Flush passed into polite and celibate seclusion. Though not by nature a lapdog, Flush sacrificed his roaming instincts and became a devoted stay-at-home, never stirring from Miss Barrett's room except on her rare excursions to take the air in fine weather. By the time brisk Mr. Browning appeared to lay siege to Miss Barrett's fluttering heart, Flush was almost a softy. He viewed Mr. Browning with alarm, did his best to break up the match. On two occasions Flush attacked him, bit his stalwart leg to no effect. A graceful realist, he saw the struggle was hopeless, admitted Mr. Browning to his friendship.
Wimpole Street backed up against one of London's grisliest slums, one of whose well-organized rackets it was to steal Wimpole Street's pets and hold them for ransom. If the ransom were not quickly forthcoming, the pet's paws and head were returned to the owners in a bag. Once (in reality, three times, says Biographer Woolf in a note) Flush was so kidnapped by these racketeers. Everybody, including Mr. Browning, advised Miss Barrett to refuse to pay ransom, sacrifice Flush on the altar of law & order. Miss Barrett indignantly refused, went herself to beard the chief racketeer in his den, finally got Flush back at an exorbitant price.
When Poetess Barrett eloped with Mr. Browning, Flush naturally went along. He enjoyed Italy as much as they did. In a land where nobody thought of kidnapping dogs, with a mistress who had ceased to be an invalid in becoming a wife, Flush led an unrestrained and roving life, made up for many a lost love-affair. With the Brownings he visited England and Wimpole Street once again, but he was glad to get back to Italy, to spend his old age in the southern sun and to die in peace by his beloved mistress's side.
Flush is one of the two choices (see p. 55) of the Book-of-the-Month Club for October.