They slept in a barn that night. Before he slept Peter took out and examined his manuscript by the light of a candle. Then his face quivered.
“Not to-night,” he said. “I can’t. I will to-morrow.”
He promised it like a child who cries “Honest Injun!” at the end of its speech.
“What would you do,” asked Peter, addressing himself to the puppy, “if you felt uncommonly miserable and had made a promise to yourself and a puppy to be cheerful?”
The puppy looked at him, head on one side. Then it yawned, a large wide yawn that began and ended in something remarkably like a grin. Finally it crept to Peter and curled down beside him in slumber.
“Grin and bear it and sleep, I suppose,” said Peter. “Puppy, you’re a philosopher, and I think your name is Democritus.”
CHAPTER XXV
AT A FAIR
And so these two entered into partnership—a partnership that, on the side of Democritus, was marked by an entire adoration, the full and overwhelming love and trust of a dog’s soul, and on Peter’s by affection and a real sense of comfort in the small animal’s companionship.