Buzzy could come out and play quietly, but Nap always got to be so excited, lolling out his tongue and yelping and barking with delight as he tore round after me, pretending to bite and worry me, and rolling over and over, and tumbling head over heels as he capered and bounded about.
I think Nap was the ugliest dog I ever saw, for he was one of those dirty white French poodles, and my aunt used to have him clipped, to look like a lion, as she said, and have him washed with hot soap and water every week.
Nothing pleased Nap better than to go out in the garden with me, but I got into sad trouble about it more than once.
“Look at him, Joseph,” my aunt would say, “it’s just as if it was done on purpose to annoy me. Beautifully washed as he was yesterday, and now look at him with his curly mane all over earth, and with bits of straw and dead leaves sticking in it. If you don’t send that boy away to a boarding-school I won’t stay in the house.”
Then my uncle would look troubled, and take me into his own room, where he kept his books and garden seeds.
“You mustn’t do it, Nat, my boy, indeed you mustn’t. You see how it annoys your aunt.”
“I didn’t think I was doing any harm, uncle,” I protested. “Nap jumped out of the window, and leaped up at me as if he wanted a game, and I only raced round the garden with him.”
“You didn’t rub the earth and dead leaves in his coat then, Nat?” said my uncle.
“Oh no!” I said; “he throws himself on his side and pushes himself along, rubs his head on the ground, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. I think it’s because he has got f—”
“Shush! Hush! my dear boy,” cried my uncle, clapping his hand over my lips. “If your aunt for a moment thought that there were any insects in that dog, she would be ill.”