"Sure, couldn't I have 'Michael'?"
"No," he said firmly. It was well she should understand that once and for all. He had never in a long experience, seen a dog he disliked more.
"Oh!" ejaculated Peg, plaintively.
Prepared to, at any rate, compromise, rather than have an open rupture, he hastened to modify his attitude:
"At least NOT in the HOUSE."
"In the STABLES?" queried Peg.
"We'd give him a jolly little kennel somewhere, if you really wanted him, and you could see him—say TWICE a day."
He felt a thrill of generosity as he thus unbent from his former rigid attitude.
"Then it wouldn't be 'love me love my dog'?" quizzed Peg.
"Well, really, you know, one cannot regulate one's life by proverbs, cousin. Can one?" he reasoned.