“Dear me!” I said, “this is thrilling—and everything so dry from the hot weather—what did you do?”
“I brushed Sir Walter and his eticut aside.”
“It’s etiquette, Gringo,” I reminded him.
“It wasn’t anything when I butted in,” said the old dog stubbornly. “Little Willie struck my fancy as a naughty bull, and I pinned him to mother earth. Mister put his two fingers in his mouth and let a whistle screech that brought the men and other dogs rolling out over and over, and in two minutes they’d stamped out the blazes.”
“What about Willie,” I asked.
Gringo burst into a hearty dog laugh. “I let him rise to the occasion, and he trotted to master, and held out his box of matches, and said: ‘Little Willie couldn’t sleep, so he thought he’d come and burn the bad weeds out of Mr. Bonstone’s orchard, ’cause Mr. Bonstone is a kind man to Willie.’”
I laughed too. “That sounds like Yeggie’s talk.”
“The boy has just about as much sense as Yeg,” said Gringo. “Mister threw a bag over Sir Walter, who was smoking and smelt to heaven, for he too had been set on fire by the thoughtful Willie. Then he takes Master Willie by his shirt collar—he was in a long-tailed garment that looked as if his mother had brought it from the old country, and down to the village, he marches the boy.”
“Didn’t Mr. Bonstone dress?” I inquired, in what, I suppose, was rather a shocked voice, for Gringo said disdainfully, “What’d he dress for? He had on a pair of decent pajamas—best outfit for a hot night, and no one was abroad but the moon. However, if you must know, Thomas brought him a cloak, and he threw it on when we went to the village.
“At first, Willie didn’t want to go home. You know what a time we have to keep him off our place. Only by telling him that we were going down to the ballroom, which is his name for Neighbourhood Hall, could we get him started. We trundled down to McGrailey’s house, and mister pounded on the door.”