Mr Allaby

In the short story Next to a Dog, Mr Allaby is a widow planning to leave England with his son and old aunt. He is looking for someone to travel with him abroad, and help him with his aunt and young son. When he's at the Registry Office he encounters Joyce Lambert and after speaking to her, he offers her the position. It's not until then that Joyce realises that Mr Allaby is the kind man that helped her to get a taxi to the vet, when her dog had fallen from a window.