“Why, we have heard,” piped up a little black and tan, “that any dog can choose his own master or mistress, and that all he has to do if he doesn’t like them or isn’t pleased with the way they treat him is to walk off and follow the first person he sees that he thinks he would like to live with, and that they will take him home with them and feed and house him.”
“Again you are partly right and partly wrong,” replied Billy. “It depends on whom you run away from and whom you pick out to be your new master or mistress. You might happen to belong to some one who was very fond of you, though you might not be fond of them. In that case if you ran away they would advertise and try to get you back, but if you had proved yourself to be a good-for-nothing dog, they would let you go and say ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish!’ and never bother their heads about you.
“Then again you might show poor judgment in selecting a new master and choose one who did not care for dogs, and when he found you following him he might throw sticks and stones at you. So you see you can’t always be sure of changing masters successfully.”
“Did you just come from America?” asked a fourth.
“Oh, no! I have been over here nearly a year now, with the army.”
“You don’t mean to tell us that you have really and truly been with the army?”
“Surely not at the front!” added another in amazement.
“But I have!” Billy assured them. “I have crossed No-Man’s-Land many times, and been shot at and blown up once besides. See where a piece of my tail is gone? Well, I lost it at Verdun. A bomb exploded and threw me up in the air and also blew off part of my tail. I consider myself very lucky that it decided to blow a piece off that end of my body instead of the other, for if it had been my head in place of my tail, it would have killed me. I can’t get along without a head, but I can without a tail.”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” laughed the dogs.
“You surely are a funny fellow!” said one. “Come on in and we will find something for you to eat and drink and also a place to rest. Then after you have rested, I hope you will tell us more of your experiences at the front. If you will do that, we will tell you our experiences in Paris before we left there, and we will introduce you to some of our celebrated police and Red Cross dogs who have been in the war and been wounded or gassed. They will relate some thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes. To-night will be a good time, after our keepers have gone to bed. Then we can sneak out under the trees in the little patch of woods behind the big stables and while you brave soldiers swap tales of the war we who have never been near the war can listen.