It was only what might be expected that the dog's singular exhibition of sagacity should repeatedly form a subject of conversation between Mrs. Weldon, the captain, and Dick. The young apprentice in particular began to entertain a lurking feeling of distrust towards Negoro, although it must be owned that the man's conduct in general afforded no tangible grounds for suspicion.
Nor as it only among the stern passengers that Dingo's remarkable feat was discussed; amongst the crew in the bow the dog not only soon gained the reputation of being able to read, but was almost credited with being able to write too, as well as any sailor among them; indeed the chief wonder was that he did not speak.
"Perhaps he can," suggested Bolton, the helmsman, "and likely enough some fine day we shall have him coming to ask about our bearings, and to inquire which way the wind lies."
"Ah! why not?" assented another sailor; "parrots talk, and magpies talk; why shouldn't a dog? For my part, I should guess it must be easier to speak with a mouth than with a beak."
"Of course it is," said Howick, the boatswain; "only a quadruped has never yet been known to do it."
Perhaps, however, the worthy fellow would have been amazed to hear that a certain Danish savant once possesed a dog that could actually pronounce quite distinctly nearly twenty different words, demonstrating that the construction
[Illustration: "This Dingo is nothing out of the way.">[
of the glottis, the aperture at the top of the windpipe, was adapted for the emission of regular sounds: of course the animal attached no meaning to the words it uttered any more than a parrot or a jay can comprehend their own chatterings.
Thus, unconsciously, Dingo had become the hero of the hour. On several separate occasions Captain Hull repeated the experiment of spreading out the blocks before him, but invariably with the same result; the dog never failed, without the slightest hesitation, to pick out the two letters, leaving all the rest of the alphabet quite unnoticed.
Cousin Benedict alone, somewhat ostentatiously, professed to take no interest in the circumstance.