"Why, just a spell ago I was settin' in my office, madder'n a cat what had tore his Sunday pants, 'cause at twelve o'clock I was goin' over to the saloon to fire that young ranger, Lusk, for gettin' drunk. I pulled out this here watch, and I says to myself: 'Bud, it was clost around twelve o'clock by a young fella's watch onct when he was filled up on liquor and rampin' round town when he ought to been to work. And it was the ole foreman's gal that begged that boy's job back for him, askin' her daddy to give him another chanct.' And the boy he come through all right. I know—for I owned the watch. And so I give Lusk another chanct."
Dorothy stepped to Shoop's chair, and, stooping quickly, kissed his cheek. Bondsman, not to be outdone, leaped jealously into Bud's lap and licked the supervisor's face. Shoop spluttered, and thrust Bondsman down.
"Things is comin' too fast!" he cried, wiping his face. "I was just goin' to say something when that dog just up and took the words right out of my mouth. Oh, yes! I was just wishin' I owned a piano factory."
CHAPTER XXXIII
The Fires of Home
Bud Shoop read the newspaper notice twice before he realized fully its import. The Adams House at Stacey was for sale. "Then Jim and Annie's patched it up," he soliloquized. And the genial Bud did not refer to the Adams House.
Because his master seemed pleased, Bondsman waited to hear the rest of it with head cocked sideways and tail at a stiff angle.
"That's all they is to it," said Shoop.
Bondsman lay down and yawned. He was growing old. It was only Bud's voice that could key the big Airedale up to his earlier alertness. The office was quiet. The clerk had gone out for his noon meal. The fall sunshine slanted lazily through the front-office windows. The room was warm, but there was a tang of autumn in the air. Shoop glanced at the paper again. He became absorbed in an article proposing conscription. He shook his head and muttered to himself. He turned the page, and glanced at the livestock reports, the copper market, railroad stocks, and passed on to an article having to do with local politics.
Bondsman, who constituted himself the guard of Shoop's leisure, rapped the floor with his tail. Shoop glanced over the top of his paper as light footsteps sounded in the outer office. Dorothy tapped on the lintel and stepped in. Shoop crumpled the paper and rose. Bondsman was at her side as she shook hands with the supervisor.