The boy paid no attention to the last remark. “I'll find it out. Other boys are thick-headed.”
“That's true,” the doctor admitted; “they are thick-headed.” Indeed this young person's serenity and confidence quite staggered him. A new diplomatic idea seemed to occur to the young person. He turned to Mother Wye and said gravely: “Will you pull Poison's ear, ma'am, so he'll know it's all right?”
Mother Wye, with some trepidation, pulled Poison's ear, and Poison wagged the whole back end of himself to make up for a tail, signifying things that were amicable, while the doctor tugged at his beard and objected to nonsense.
“Well, young man, we'll see what you have to say for yourself. Tut! tut! mother,”—to Mrs. Wye's murmur of remonstrance,—“we'll have no nonsense. This is a practical matter;” and he tramped sturdily into the house, followed by the serious boy, the amicable dog, and the appeased, in fact the quite melted, Mother Wye.
“Now, boy,” said the doctor, “what's your name?”
“Jack.”
“Jack what? Is that other fellow your father?”
“I reckon maybe he is,” returned Jack, with a gloomy frown. “His name's Baker. He peddles.”
The doctor tugged at his beard and muttered that “at any rate there appeared to be no nonsense about it. But he's looking for you,” he said. “He'll take you away.”
“He's looking for the dog,” said Jack, calmly. “He can't have him.”