“What, hold him?”
“Yes, to be sure. I won’t be long.”
“But, uncle,” I said, “he looks such a brute, as if he’d eat a fellow.”
“My dear Cob, I sha’n’t be above a quarter of an hour. He couldn’t get through more than one leg by that time.”
“Now you’re laughing at me,” I said.
“Hold the dog, then, you young coward!”
“I’m not,” I said in an injured tone; and I caught at the leather thong, for if it had been a lion I should have held on then.
I wanted to say, “Don’t be long,” but I was ashamed, and I looked rather wistfully over my shoulder as he went in, leaving me with the dog.
Piter uttered a low whine as the door closed, and then growled angrily and gave a short deep-toned bark.
This done, he growled at me, smelled me all round, making my legs seem to curdle as his blunt nose touched them, and then after winding the thong round me twice he stood up on his hind-legs, placing his paws against my chest and his ugly muzzle between them.