“Take Timmy Loo, won’t you? He hasn’t had a run to-day.”
“Course I will. Come on, Tim.” And the Chaperon flew away, followed by the silver-blue Skye. After an hour or more the yellow-haired Chaperon returned in a state of exhaustion.
“I’ll never take that dog out with me again,” she declared, with such a tragic air that Marjorie felt certain her pet must have brought disgrace upon the whole club.
“Why, what has my bad little bundle of a dog been a-doing?” she inquired, grabbing up the quivering bunch of silver curls and blue ribbon.
“He wasn’t bad,” said Marguerite, laughing, “but he’s such a nuisance. I thought I should never get home. He made me go into every shop in the village.”
“That didn’t take very long,” observed Betty, dryly.
“No; but he insisted on being fed at each place; and he knows exactly where they all keep their eatables. At the grocer’s he flew to the glass case where the chocolates are, and pawed at it and whined until Mr. Forbes had to open it and give him some. Then at the milliner’s, where I was buying ribbon, he tore out into her back parlor, and jumped up on a table, trying to reach a little chest of drawers where, it seems, she keeps sugar-lumps. And even at the dry-goods shop he dived behind a lot of rolls of stuff and found a paper bag of ginger cookies. Oh, he’s a terror! How does he know all these places?”
“He smells them out!” said Marjorie, patting Tim’s head, while the dog, understanding that he was being praised, wagged his bit of a tail and blinked his eyes proudly.
“And when he had found the things,” continued Marguerite, “he never offered to touch them, but just sat up and begged, with that cocky blue bow sticking up behind, and of course nobody could refuse him.”
“I should think not!” cried Marjorie, hugging her treasure. “Of course nobody could refuse a bit of chocolate or sugar to such a polite, refined, well-bred little doggikins, who always keeps his bow at the back of his neck!” And Tim fairly glowed at her fond appreciation.