“My dear,” said the gentleman turning to his wife, “you will get cold, go back to bed, and I will arrange this affair.”
“Come, Beanie darling,” said the lady, and she tugged Beanie off in her arms, he looking over her shoulder as if anxious to be in at the death.
The gentleman sat down and asked Ellen to repeat her story. He cross-examined her, then he cross-examined me, asking me questions exactly as if I were a human being.
“This is the crux of the whole matter,” he remarked, “How did that collar get off our dog’s neck to the neck of this strange dog—who, by the way, is a thoroughbred. Our maid said that there seemed to be no man about, only a white dog running.”
The collar had fallen to the floor. I gambolled up to it, ran my head through it, pawed it off, and went back to the man.
“Come up here,” he said patting his knee, and I sprang up, gave him one of my most intelligent glances, and we were friends.
“You rogue,” he said, “you’re a dog of character, and probably a Bohemian.”
“I reckon he’s American, sir,” said Ellen kindly. “He knows all we say to him. I’ll take him, if you don’t want him. I’d like a nice dog.”
The gentleman smiled, and said, “Let him choose. I’ll give him a week’s trial. Now, dog, is it go or stay?”
It was stay, of course. I ran to Ellen, licked her hands and even the face that she bent over me, but I kept looking backward at my new owner.