The dog wagged his abbreviated tail, licked Tode's fingers, and rubbed his head against the ragged trousers of his new friend.
"Ye do, hey! Well, I'll keep ye ter-night, anyhow. Le' see, what'll I call ye? You've got ter have a name. S'posin' I call ye Tag. That do--hey, Tag?"
The dog gave a quick, short bark and limped gaily about the boy's feet.
"All right--we'll call ye Tag then. Now then, there's yer bed," and he threw into a corner an old piece of carpet that he had picked up on a vacant lot. The dog understood and settled himself with a long, contented sigh, as if he would have said:
"At last I've found a master and a home."
In a day or two Tag's lameness disappeared, and his devotion to his new master was unbounded. Tode found him useful, too, for he kept vigilant watch when the boy was busy at his stand, and suffered no thievish fingers to snatch anything when Tode's eyes and fingers were too busy for him to be on the lookout. The dog was such a loving, intelligent little creature, that he quickly won his way into Nan's heart, and he evidently considered himself the guardian of Little Brother from the first day that he saw Tode and the child together. Some dogs have a way of reading hearts, and Tag knew within two minutes that Tode loved every lock on Little Brother's sunny head.
A few days after that Sabbath that the boy was never to forget, he went to see Nan and the baby, and in the course of his visit, remarked,
"Nan, I seen the bishop last Sunday."
"What bishop?" inquired Nan.
"The one that talked at the big, stone church--St. Mark's, they call it."