She dropped the tea-pot in her amazement. “Not two thousand dollars.”
“Yes, two thousand dollars,” he said.
She stood deliberating a long time. Her eyes went to the picture of her deceased husband on the wall, to the framed wreath taken from his coffin, to the photograph of her two boys standing clasping each other in an almost death grip. Then she said very slowly, “You’re a rich man, and I s’pose it don’t seem anything to you, but to me it’s a fortune.”
“I wish it were ten thousand,” he said heartily. “However, one can’t measure gratitude by money. I’m your friend for life.”
“Sir, that’s better than the money,” she said with a smile running all over her wrinkled old face. “If you’ll bring that lovely dog of yours to see me sometimes, it’ll be better than bags of gold to me.”
Master didn’t say any more, and she didn’t. They understood each other. He made her sit down, while he picked up the pieces of broken tea-pot from the rag mat, then he came back to me.
“You little rascal,” he said lovingly, “I believe I’ll be a beggar soon, if you keep on. Exhibiting you in that show has dragged me into endless litigation. The pictures and descriptions of you in the newspapers have brought former owners buzzing about my ears like angry bees. I’ve had to buy you over and over again, and your kidnapping cost me a heap more.”
I licked his strong hands. My dear master—he would sell his house, before he would part with me. Then I looked anxiously in his face. He knew what I wanted, and he began to tell me about home affairs. “Young George has mourned you like a brother,” he said smilingly. “He has gone about the house wailing, ‘I want my Borsie—I want my Borsie,’ and when night came, and you did not appear for your frolic in the nursery, he has often cried with disappointment.”
“And mistress,” I wondered as I gazed at him.