“Please let me go back to my little master”
But she never once understood him—never once noticed he was saying, “Oh, dear young lady, please let me go back to my little master. He is very ill and needs me. Don’t you see that I belong to him? I will do anything in the world for you that an honorable little dog can do, if you will only let me go.”
Perhaps the saddest of all his prison days was the time he really thought she was going to release him. He had wagged his tail especially hard that morning at the door. She had put on her hat saying, “Come on, then.”
Oh, how happy he was and how hard he tried to thank her! Then came the dreadful minute when she fastened a silver chain to his collar.
At first he broke down completely and moaned and moaned. Then he thought: “Perhaps if I walk by her side very nicely it will soften her heart; and then there is always a chance when out in the great beautiful open world.”
So he walked quite contentedly by her side and waited patiently while she stopped to chat with some other young ladies. But when she said boastingly, “Do you see my beautiful new dog?” he simply could not stand it. Do you know what he did? He growled, and his growl had a bit of a snap in it, too. This made the young lady very cross, and she decided to take Ready home at once.
When they reached the door, Ready’s eyes would have melted a heart of stone. He knelt to her, he moaned to her, he begged so prettily on his hind legs, but the young lady would have none of it. She pushed him rudely into the dark room and slammed the door.
I think that was the saddest moment of Ready’s prison life. But in spite of everything, Ready never once gave up the hope of getting his chance to escape, and that is why it came.
