“Don't ye? When's he comin' back? HUSH UP!” This last was a command to the prisoner in the box, who paid absolutely no attention to it.
“I don't know when he'll be back. Do you want to see him personally? Won't I do? I'm in charge here till he returns.”
“Be ye? Oh, you're the new assistant from Boston. You'll do. All I want to do is unload him—Job, I mean—and leave a couple bundles of fly paper Seth ordered. Here!” lowering the tailboard and climbing into the wagon, “you catch aholt of t'other end of the box, and I'll shove on this one. Hush up, Job! Nobody's goin' to eat ye—'less it's the moskeeters. Now, then, mister, here he comes.”
He began pushing the box toward the open end of the wagon. The dog's whines and screams and scratchings furnished an accompaniment almost deafening.
“Wait! Stop! For heaven's sake, wait!” shouted Brown. “What are you putting that brute off here for? I don't want him.”
“Yes, you do. Seth does, anyhow. Henry G. made him a present of Job last time Seth was over to the store. Didn't he tell ye?”
Then the substitute assistant remembered. This was the “half-grown pup” Atkins had said was to be brought over by the grocery boy. This was the creature they were to accept “on trial.”
“Well, by George!” he exclaimed in disgust.
“Didn't Seth tell ye?” asked the boy again.
“Yes. . . . Yes, I believe he did. But—”