“You’re all right, old boy,” said Bob. “You’ve had your chance; that wind did you a good turn, after all. It doesn’t sound quite so fine to say Duke saved his hat as his life, but it amounts to the same in the end. Just keep cool, Billy, and you’re all right.”
It was not very easy to keep cool, however. Billy hoped and watched and waited a whole day before the subject of dogs was mentioned again.
“Where did you get him?” asked his father, as the smoke began to curl from his after-dinner cigar.
“Him?” said Billy, confusedly. “Oh, Duke? I found him in the graveyard, with six more. The mother had left them, and I couldn’t let them die—though the rest did, after all. But we succeeded in raising Duke; and I couldn’t part with him after all that, sir.”
“Don’t attempt to excuse your obstinacy,” said his father, inwardly commenting on “that Jenks will.” “He’s a trained animal, I see. That is where the time has gone which should have been devoted to Latin. A very bad report that last, sir. Is he anything of a mouser?”
“Splendid!” said Billy.
Nothing more was said until the “Pet and Pride,” after the usual amount of caressing, was surveyed in the mirror—then tender memories prompted papa to say, gruffly:
“He is not to live on charity like a beggar. Shut him up in the store-room, if he’s good for anything, and let him have it out with the rats. But keep him away from me, sir. Let him be fed in the basement, but let him understand that he is not to come above ground where I can see him; and remember that he is on trial—distinctly on trial.”
WITH DUKE’S COMPLIMENTS.