“Take care! He may snap at you!” Mr. Beaumaris said quickly, seeing her about to kneel down beside the dog. “Shall I thrash them all soundly?”
At these words, the two smaller boys departed precipitately, the two whose heads were still ringing drew circumspectly out of range of Mr. Beaumaris’s long-lashed whip, and the bruised youth in the road whined that they weren’t doing any harm, and that all his ribs were busted.
“How badly have they hurt him?” Miss Tallant asked anxiously. “He cries when I touch him!”
Mr. Beaumaris pulled off his gloves, and handed them to her, together with his whip, saying: “Hold those for me, and I’ll see.”
She obediently took them, and watched anxiously while he went over the mongrel. She saw with approval that he handled the little creature firmly and gently, in a way that showed he knew what he was about. The dog whined, and uttered little cries, and cowered, but he did not offer to snap. Indeed, he feebly wagged his disgraceful tail, and once licked Mr. Beaumaris’s hand.
“He is badly bruised, and has one or two nasty sores, but there are no bones broken,” Mr. Beaumaris said, straightening himself. He turned to where the two remaining youths were standing, poised on the edge of flight, and said sternly: “Whose dog is this?”
“It don’t belong to no one,” he was sullenly informed. “It goes all over, stealing things off of the rubbish-heaps: yes, and out of the butcher’s shop!”
“I seen ’im in Chelsea onct with ’alf a loaf of bread,” corroborated the other youth.
The accused crawled to Mr. Beaumaris’s elegantly shod feet, and pawed one gleaming Hessian appealingly.
“Oh, see how intelligent he is!” cried Arabella, stooping to fondle the animal. “He knows he has you to thank for his rescue!”