Her opposite neighbour might shout himself hoarse for all she cared. She wanted full marks and a "plus" for her essay.
Night after night that week from the house opposite a tenor voice apostrophised some peerless she. But never again did Jane-Anne go to the window, and Gantry Bill laid his head sideways on his paws, his ears flopped forwards, and snored gently, while his master, at the top of his voice, proclaimed "the thousand beauties that he knew so well."
He was a patient dog, Gantry Bill. More patient than his master who, by-and-bye, gave it up as a bad job—and went out. He occasionally attended lectures, too, whither the dog could not accompany him. Then would Bill sit on the window-ledge watching the passers-by with a wise reflective air, or sleep in that pathetic abandonment of attitude habitual to the bull-terrier.
Jane-Anne sometimes crossed the street, spoke to him, caressed him, and peeped into the empty room behind—a most untidy room.
"Poor doggie," she said, one Saturday afternoon, "alone so much; would you like to come and play in our garden, Gantry Bill? It's much cooler than over here. The master's out, and you'll not bother anybody."
Gantry Bill looked at her, and evidently was tempted. In fact, a pretty girl in a white frock on a hot July afternoon is always a pleasing apparition.
Very slowly, like a stiff old gentleman, Gantry Bill arose and stood on the window-ledge. He smiled at Jane-Anne, and playfully took her hand into his mouth and mumbled it, in token of his approval.
"He's gone to the boats, he'll be hours and hours," she said. "I saw him rushing up the street in those awful little short knickerbockers, and you left all alone to mope, poor dear! Why shouldn't you have a little amusement, too?"
This appeared a sound argument. Gantry Bill dropped from the window-ledge into the street, and followed Jane-Anne across the road. Into the garden she took him by devious ways that did not challenge the observation of Mrs. Dew. She fetched him water in a pie-dish and presented him with a chocolate biscuit, then she sat down under the apple-tree to mend her stockings. But Gantry Bill hadn't come out for the afternoon to watch people mend stockings.
He spied a hockey ball lying on the path, seized it in his mouth, and galumphed heavily towards Jane-Anne, laid it at her feet, barked and made a series of short rushes at her in token that he desired to play.