“I’m awfully sorry I wasn’t at the station when Jane—when you got in, Uncle Herbert. Did you have a comfortable trip down from—”
“Nine,” counted Mr. Sage, and then fifteen seconds later: “Ten. Now, what shall I do with him, Oliver? If I let him down he’ll jump at me like a rattlesnake and—”
“Oh, no, he won’t,” said Oliver, reluctantly withdrawing his gaze from the window and joining the other beyond the corner of the woodshed. “He’ll lick your hand if you hold it close enough to his nose. Let him down. See that? He’s got his tail between his legs—or as much of it as he can get there—and he’ll keep it there till he thinks you want him to wag it.”
“I feel like a brute,” muttered Mr. Sage, but not as contritely as might have been expected. “I hope I haven’t really injured the poor little fellow.” Henry the Eighth, cringing flat on his little belly, peeped anxiously but evilly up at his new master. “He doesn’t appear to be able to stand on his feet, Oliver.”
“Does he know any tricks?”
“Oh my, yes. He’s really quite clever. He does quite a few for Josephine. Rolls over, plays dead, jumps over her foot, sits up and begs, and—”
“Tell him to roll over,” said Oliver sternly.
“Oh, he won’t do them for me. He growls at me whenever I attempt to—”
“Tell him to roll over.”
“Roll over, Henry—roll over, sir! Why—why, bless my soul, he’s doing it.”