"Well, after all, it looks that ways, Elmer," he said. "But the fact is, nobody wants to make Bruno mad by takin' away his playthings. I tried it once, and would yuh believe it, the critter made a jump for me, and growled so ugly that after that I jest vowed he could keep piling 'em up, for all of me."
"Oh, I see; then you don't toss them to him?" said Mark, while his chum smiled, as though fairly well satisfied with the way the conversation had turned.
"Who, me, give Bruno them old shoes?" ejaculated Phil Lally. "Well, I guess not. He gets 'em all hisself. It's an old trick of Bruno's. There have been times when he's had as much as seven old shoes layin' around here at one time. When I gets a chanct I sneaks 'em away an' buries the same. Got a regular cemetery fur old shoes back o' the stable."
"But where does he get them, if he's chained up here all the time?" asked Mark.
"What, him?" echoed the gardener. "Oh, nobody don't seem able to keep that slick customer chained up no great time at a stretch. Sometimes I've knowed him to slip his collar as many as four nights a week."
"You mean he gets away?" asked Elmer, helping things along; for he began to see Mark casting eyes at him suspiciously.
"Always that. Bruno, he's a wanderer. He's got the habit bad; and as soon as he gets loose it's hike for him. But I will say he always knows when to come home, and in the morning we find him in his kennel, tuckered out mebbe, but happy."
"But do you mean he brings one of those old shoes home with him every time?" demanded Mark.
"He jest wont come home without something like that in his mouth," continued the gardener. "I've seen him adoin' of the same, and had to laugh at the critter. Once it was a lady's hat. We reckoned that it must a' blew off when she was goin' past in a car at a fast clip, and they couldn't find it. But Bruno lighted on it, easy like."
"A lady's hat!" muttered Mark, and then he faced his chum, adding: "Look here now, Elmer, you didn't come back to see Bruno just by accident. You had a reason for doing it? Own up now!"