Without waiting for a reply he jammed a round-topped straw hat upon his thick hair and came down the stairs with solid tread. A fat and fuzzy old dog followed on his heels with tread comically similar. “I had two of ’em once,” he was wont to say, “Eli and Uli, but I gave away Uli to another lawyer and kept Eli.”
“They say, Squire Look,” began Uncle Buck, as soon as the lawyer came within hearing, “that you can tell us whether old ‘Hard-Times’ there ought to be hitched up on town hall cupoly as a vane or sent to the insane ’sylum.”
“It ain’t fair to put it that way,” remonstrated Dow Babb, and he proceeded to state the point of contention.
The two deep lines on either side of the Squire’s straight mouth curved away, and his round, smooth-shaven face beamed upon them humorously.
“It isn’t the first time, gentlemen,” he said, “that the motives of a philanthropist have been misconstrued by the people to whom he has presented himself and his services.”
“What I contend,” broke in Dow Babb, “is that ’Quar’us has a sort of seventh sense to smell happening ahead. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s like what a dog has to make him go to howlin’ when some one’s goin’ to die.”
“Well, you ought to ask Eli about that,” suggested the Squire, his smile broader. “That seems to be right in his line,” and then, looking down into the humid eyes of the dog, he asked, “Eli, why do you howl when some one is going to die?”
The canine, who was squatting on the grass, thumped his tail agitatedly and uttered a short “Wuff!”
“Can you talk dog well enough to understand?” asked the lawyer of Buck.
“Now, Squire,” pleaded Babb whiningly, “you tell us straight. This ain’t foolin’. We ain’t been able to coax the old sir off’n that platform so fur this afternoon. He was like that on the days before the line storms and on them other times. He don’t act out a weather vane usually more’n a half hour on a stretch and then sets down and chaws tobacker with us like a human bein’!”