"Miss Murray," said Richard firmly, "that dog is not to be fed any more, please."
"Last piece," said Jane. "And he's promised to do Swedish exercises."
Richard was inclined to agree with Mr Murray. The coincidence was again remarkable; it might even be called very extraordinary. And, given a choice of two things, Richard preferred to believe the easier. Why, fond though he was of Zero, he had to admit that the dog was not even clever.
He had tried to teach Zero to find a hidden biscuit, but though he had hidden the biscuit in all manner of places he had never yet selected a place that Zero had been able to discover. He was just a dear old fool of a bulldog, and it was absurd to suppose that he was a miracle.
But Jane Murray remained firm in her belief, and even condescended to be serious about it.
"Look here," she said, "if you put your horse at a jump, and you're feeling a bit shy of it yourself, do you mean to say the horse doesn't know?"
"Of course he knows. But he only knows it by the way you ride him."
"Well, I've had it happen to me. All I can say is that I wasn't conscious of riding any differently. It was my first season in Ireland, and I wasn't used to the walls. I said to myself, 'It's got to be.' I did really mean to get over. But the horse knew the funk in my head and refused. However, I'll give you another point. How do you explain the homing instinct of animals?"
"I've never thought about it. I suppose when a pigeon gets up high it can see no end of a distance."
"That won't do. Dogs and cats have the same instinct—especially cats. For that matter, crabs have been taken from the sea and returned to it again at a point eighty miles away, and have found their way back. It's not done by sight, scent, or hearing. It must be done by some special sense which they have got and we have not."