"My bloomin' oath, what a dog!" exclaimed Sam, as his mother reached forward and opened the sitting-room door, leaving Finn free to plunge forward into the dark interior, which he did on the instant. In the next instant he was out again, and pawing at the opposite door, leading to the bedroom. This, too, was opened for him, and in another moment he had satisfied himself that neither room had been occupied by the Master or the Mistress for a considerable time. This was a grievous blow to Finn, and as he returned to the little landing between the two rooms, he sniffed despairingly at the landlady's skirt, and even nuzzled her rough hand, with a vague feeling that she might be able to produce his friends. Not that he had any serious purpose in this, however, for it was strongly borne in upon Finn now that he had lost his friends for good and all.
"Well, what jer think of 'im?" the landlady asked of her son.
Sam was a tall, loosely built, rather slouching fellow; a typical young Australian of a certain class; not unintelligent, rather lazy, given to drawl in his speech, and extremely self-centred. He had been eyeing Finn all this while with growing interest, and now he said--
"Is he savage?"
"Wouldn't hurt a sheep," replied the mother. "Wouldn't yer like to know where I got such a beauty?"
"No kid. He's not yours," said Sam.
"Well, I reckon he could be, if I wanted sech a great elephant. 'Is Master lodged 'ere these two months an' more, but 'e went off to the mountins yesterday with his sick Missis. Why, come to think of it, er course, that's what it is. 'Is Master's sole him, that's what 'e's done; and that's why 'e was able to pay me, an' the doctor, an' go off to the mountins yesterday. An' now the bloomin' dog's run away an' come back to look for 'im; that's what that is, you can take yer oath."
Sam spat reflectively on the little coloured door-mat. "Well, the dog's no use to you, mother," he said. "You can't do nothin' with him."
"I'm not so sure about that, Sam," replied the landlady thoughtfully. As a matter of fact, the idea of keeping Finn had not occurred to her for a moment, up till then. But hers was not an easy life; she was always short of money, and found it extremely difficult to worm anything out of this big son of hers during his rare visits to her. In fact, of late she had given up the attempt, so that his visits represented only an additional expense for her. "I don' know about that, Sam. I might keep 'im, an' watch out fer the reward. A dawg like that's worth money."
"Too bloomin' big an' clumsy to be worth much," said Sam disparagingly. "Clumsy" was no more applicable to Finn than it would be to a panther, and Sam was well aware of it. "Tell you what," he said, "I've got to be makin' for the station in half an hour, anyway. I'll take the dog out o' yer way, an' give you half a quid for him, if yer like. I shall lose on it, fer it's not likely the boss could make any use of 'im, anyway. But I'll chance the ducks this time, if yer like. You can't keep a bloomin' camel like that here."