Well, Dick Varley began by calling out, “Crusoe! Crusoe! come here, pup.”
Of course Crusoe knew his name by this time, for it had been so often used as a prelude to his meals, that he naturally expected a feed whenever he heard it. This portal to his brain had already been open for some days; but all the other doors were fast locked, and it required a great deal of careful picking to open them.
“Now, Crusoe, come here.”
Crusoe bounded clumsily to his master’s side, cocked his ears, and wagged his tail—so far his education was perfect. We say he bounded clumsily, for it must be remembered that he was still a very young pup, with soft, flabby muscles.
“Now, I’m goin’ to begin yer edication, pup; think o’ that.”
Whether Crusoe thought of that or not we cannot say, but he looked up in his master’s face as he spoke, cocked his ears very high, and turned his head slowly to one side, until it could not turn any further in that direction; then he turned it as much to the other side, whereat his master burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and Crusoe immediately began barking vociferously.
“Come, come,” said Dick, suddenly checking his mirth, “we mustn’t play, pup, we must work.”
Drawing a leathern mitten from his belt, the youth held it to Crusoe’s nose, and then threw it a yard away, at the same time exclaiming in a loud, distinct tone, “Fetch it.”
Crusoe entered at once into the spirit of this part of his training; he dashed gleefully at the mitten, and proceeded to worry it with intense gratification. As for “Fetch it,” he neither understood the words nor cared a straw about them.
Dick Varley rose immediately, and rescuing the mitten, resumed his seat on a rock.