Charley did not come till the next day, and the agonies I went through, meantime, with that blessed dog, "no mortal creeter knows," as Mrs. Gamp would say.
I'm afraid I gave him too much meat, or else joy flew to his head and made him wild, for he developed such a flow of spirits that I felt as if I had an unchained whirlwind in my room. He bounced to the window every time a cart went by; growled at every dog he saw; barked at every one who entered the room; drank out of my pitcher; worried the rosettes off my slippers; upset my work-basket, the fire-irons, and two bottles in his artless play; scratched the paint off the door trying to get out, and, when he got to the yard, chased all the cats till they fled over the walls in every direction.
When exhausted with these little amusements, he would come and try to lick my face, put his paws in my lap, and languish at me with his fine eyes; and when I told him I couldn't have it, he cast himself at my feet and squirmed rapturously.
He was a great plague, but I was fond of him, and when Charley came was sorry that he must leave me. But he had been on the rampage all that second night, for I put him in the hall to sleep, and he had scratched and howled at every door till I let him in to save him from the shower of boots hurled at him by the young gentlemen whose slumbers he had disturbed; so it was high time he went.
Charley laughed at him, but, when I had told the story, the good lad took pity on him and led him away after I had kissed and bade him be a good dog. He didn't seem satisfied, but consented to go to please me, and trotted round the corner, looking so neat and respectable it did my heart good to see him.
"Now he is settled, and what a comfort that is!" I said to myself as I restored my devastated home to order.
But he wasn't: oh, dear, no; for in two days back he came, all his own naughty self, and I found him boldly erect upon the steps waiting for me. He had run away and come home to his first friend, sure of a welcome.
It was very flattering, but also inconvenient; so he was restored to his master after a scolding and a patting which probably spoilt the effect of the lecture.
Three times did that dear deluded dog come back, and three times was he bundled home again. Then Charley shut him up in an old shed, and kept him there except when he led him out by a chain for an airing.
But Huckleberry's grateful passion could not be restrained, and cost him his life in the end. He amused his leisure hours scratching and burrowing at the foundation stones of the shed wall, and, being loosely built, a big one fell on him in some way, hurting him so badly that there was no cure for his broken bones.