“My relative in the West,” explained Miss Pellicoe, “has sent me a dog, and I am given to understand that his age is six months. As he is phenomenally large, I have thought it best to seek for information. Has my relative been imposed upon?”
“It’s har-r-rd to tell, Mum,” replied the policeman, dubiously. Then his countenance brightened. “Does his feet fit him?” he inquired.
“What—what do you mean?” asked Miss Pellicoe, shrinking back a little.
“Is his feet like blackin’-boxes on th’ ind of his legs?”
“They are certainly very large.”
“Thin ’tis a pup. You see, Mum, with a pup, ’tis this way. The feet starts first, an’ the pup grows up to ’em, like. Av they match him, he’s grown. Av he has arctics on, he’s a pup.”
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Hector’s growth in the next six months dissipated all doubts as to his puphood. He became a four-legged Colossus, martial toward cats, aggressive toward the tradesmen at the wicket-gate, impartially affectionate toward all the household, and voracious beyond all imagining. But he might have eaten the gentle ladies out of house and home, and they would never have dreamed of protesting. The house had found a Head—even a Head above Miss Pellicoe.
The deposed monarch gloried in her subjection. She said “Hector likes this,” or “Hector likes that,” with the tone of submissive deference in which you may hear a good wife say, “Mr. Smith will not eat cold boiled mutton,” or “Mr. Smith is very particular about his shirt-bosoms.”
As for Miss Angela, she never looked at Hector, gamboling about the back-yard in all his superabundance of strength and vitality, without feeling a half-agreeable nervous shock, and a flutter of the heart. He stood for her as the type of that vast outside world of puissant manhood of which she had known but two specimens—her father and Cousin Hector. Perhaps, in the old days, if Cousin Hector had not been so engrossed in frivolity and making of practical jokes, he might have learned of something to his advantage. But he never did.