Toddie's little arms and legs were bare, she had pulled off her red fisherman's cap to wave it above her head, and as she dashed on to meet the roaring sea her hair floated straight behind her in the breeze. And Tippetty, the dachshund, barking with all his might, came just a little in advance.
This spoke volumes for the strength of Tip's lungs. Though lovely and hound-like in head, like all dachshunds, he was bandy in legs, very low to the ground, and of tremendous length. So long and low indeed was he, that when at the gallop his black body wriggled like an eel. So long was he that he could not jump on a chair. He could put his two paws and head up, but if asked to spring, he looked about him wisely at his tail end, as much as to say,
"I would jump up willingly with my front part, don't you know? but then the other end of the procession wouldn't come along."
Tippetty was one of the wisest and kindest-hearted wee dogs that ever lapped milk.
He was the pet of the village, and no wonder, for Tippetty dug bait for everybody.
"Is Tip at home?" a fisherman would say to Eppie as he passed seawards.
"Tip, Tip," Eppie would cry, "you're wanted." And off he would go. He knew the worms' holes in the sand, and none could go too deep for Tip. With his little mole's feet and his wee bandy legs he would throw the sand up behind him as if he were a living mitrailleuse, and soon expose the coveted bait.
The first visit of the children to-day was to the aquarium, and Frank listened with delight to the terrible story of Tom, the naughty dolly-fish.
"But what a good thing," said Frank seriously, "that you were there putting back the dolly-fish. Else I should have been drowned."
"Oh," said Toddie, nodding her demure morsel of a head, "that was Plovidence, Flank. Oh, yes I 'ssure oo, Flank, it was Plovidence, 'cause Daddy Pop told me. Now then."