For a while he stood there and looked at me as though I had said not one single word which he was capable of understanding. His jaw did not exactly drop, but there was all that expression about his face as if it might at any moment.
"Don't you follow me?" said I.
"Yes, sir—"
"Well?"
"How long are you going to leave Dandy there, sir?"
"Oh—for good. I am making a present of him to Mrs. Townshend."
The poor man looked bewildered. I could see he had so much to say, yet was endeavoring his utmost to recollect his place lest he should speak all there was in his mind.
"What's troubling you?" I asked.
"I can't quite understand it, sir," he replied, frowning heavily, as he tried to impress it upon his mind. "Dandy—he's such a companion to you, sir—to both of us, if I may be permitted to say so. He's like a person about the house. The way he runs for his biscuits—the way he sits up for you when you go out to supper. What I mean to say, sir, he's more than a dog if he is less than a 'uman being. Why—I've seen him, sir, of a night before you've come in, go down to the hall at about a quarter-past twelve when I suppose he'd thought it was half-past—I've seen him go down to the hall door and stand there listening to the sound of every footstep as came along the street. To every sound he'd prick up his ears, expecting it was you. Well—you've seen him, sir, when you've come in of an evening. What I mean to say—I don't think you'd—"
I got up quickly from my chair.