"I tried to dissuade him, but it was no use. I told him he would run away, and he said, with great dignity, that he did not desire for a pet anything which had to be tied up in order to be retained. He observed that the restraining influence worked against the pethood so strongly as practically to obscure it."
"New word?" laughed Barbara.
"I don't know why it isn't a good word," returned Roger, in defence. "If 'manhood' and 'womanhood' and 'brotherhood' and all the other 'hoods' are good English, I see no reason why 'pethood' shouldn't be used in the same sense. The English language needs a lot of words added to it before it can be called complete."
"One wouldn't think so, judging by the size of the dictionary. However, we'll let it pass. Go on with the story."
"Things have been lively for a week or more. The pup has romped around a good deal and has playfully bitten a client or two, but the Judge has been highly edified until to-day. Fido got an important legal document which the Judge had just drafted, and literally chewed it to pulp. Then he swallowed it, apparently with great relish. I was told to make another, and my not knowing about it, and taking the liberty of asking a few necessary questions, produced the fireworks. It wasn't Fido's fault, but mine."
"How is Fido?" queried Barbara, with affected anxiety.
"He was well at last accounts, but the document was long enough and complicated enough to make him very ill. I hope he'll die of it to-morrow."
"Perhaps he's going to study law, too," remarked Barbara, "and believes, with Macaulay, that 'a page digested is better than a book hurriedly read.'"
"I think that will do, Miss North. I'll read to you now, if you don't mind. I would fain improve myself instead of listening to such childish chatter."
"Perhaps, if you read to me enough, I'll improve so that even you will enjoy talking to me," she returned, with a mischievous smile. "What did you bring over?"