“I know what I shall do!” cried Clare, in sudden resolve. “I will ask Miss Tempest to have him up-stairs with her, and when she is tired of either of us, we will go away together.”
“A probable thing!” returned the cook. “A lady like Miss Tempest with a dog like that about her! She’d be eaten up alive with fleas! In ten minutes she would!”
“No fear of that!” rejoined Clare. “Abdiel catches all his own fleas!—Don’t you, Abby?”
The dog instantly began to burrow in his fell of hair—an answer which might be taken either of two ways: it might indicate comprehension and corroboration of his master, or the necessity for a fresh hunt. The women laughed, much amused.
“Look here!” said Clare. “Let me have a tub of water—warm, if you please—he likes that: I tried him once, passing a factory, where a lot of it was running to waste. Then, with the help of a bit of soap, I’ll show you a body of hair to astonish you.”
“What breed is he?” asked the housemaid.
“He’s all the true breeds under the sun, I fancy,” returned his master; “but the most of him seems of the sky-blue terrier sort.”
The more they talked with Clare, the better the women liked him. They got him a tub and plenty of warm water. Abdiel was nothing loath to be plunged in, and Clare washed him thoroughly. Taken out and dried, he seemed no more for a lady’s chamber unmeet.
“Now,” said Clare, “will you please ask Miss Tempest if I may bring him on to the lawn, and show her some of his tricks?”
The good lady was much pleased with the cleverness and instant obedience of the little animal. Clare proposed that she should keep him by her.