“Oh, not in the store, Ted,” objected Nancy. “Do you think that would be just right, Manny?”
“Well, a big dog like that,” demurred Miss Manners, who, now being a real resident of the Brandon home, shared their table with them.
“But he’s had a swim and he’s as clean as—as anything,” floundered the boy, quite unable to summon an appropriate comparison for his great friend. “And Mother, he can watch the whole house for us. How do we know someone wouldn’t try to steal—the secret of the chimney place?”
“It isn’t our secret,” retorted Nancy, “and for my part I can’t see what right Mr. Sanders has around our place at all.”
“You can depend, dear,” said Mrs. Brandon gently, “that whatever he has put in the chimney, if anything, it is something that could in no way bother us. Mr. Sanders is a professor, and the old-fashioned stone oven may have some special interest for him.”
“But couldn’t he ask us about it, if he wanted to—to plant a bomb there?” Nancy remarked, superciliously.
“He’s no gabber,” said Ted, with more wisdom than elegance. “And anyway, maybe he didn’t. But Mother, may I have the old steamer rug to make a bed for Nero? He’s so big he needs a big bed.”
It was finally agreed that Nero should be allowed to sleep in the store before the fireboard, and after much work making the rug into a bed for him, Ted eventually got him to try it.
Very slowly the big shaggy creature sprawled himself out on the soft wool, but he only stayed sprawled for a few moments. The next, he got up, took a corner of the rug between his teeth, dragged it over to the show gas-range and, in a dog’s way, proceeded to make his own bed.
Every one was watching him and every one laughed.