“I am looking at it,” answered Dick. “Nice and ugly, isn’t it? What makes it so pink?”
“That’s the way it ought to be,” answered Trevor with fine disdain for his friend’s ignorance. “I wonder who it belongs to?”
“Belongs right here, sir!” The boys glanced around and found a colored stableman observing them smilingly from the doorway. Trevor placed the puppy upon the ground, where it at once relapsed into a state of loud and poignant grief, leaping with snowy feet against his stockings, and crying vehemently to be again taken up. Trevor patted it, whereupon its grief gave place to uncontrollable delight; it stood on its hind legs, buried its short nose in a small snow-bank, and attempted to take the boy’s entire hand into its pink mouth, and all within the instant.
“It’s the liveliest pup I ever saw,” said Carl.
“That’s a fine dog, sir,” said the owner. “His mother took a first and two second prizes at the dog show last week, and his father’s got lots of ’em. Yes, siree, he’s a mighty fine dog, he is.”
“Come on,” said Dick, “we’ll lose the train if we’re not careful.”
But Trevor paid no heed. He was looking intently at the puppy, which, with the boy’s left thumb between his teeth, was radiantly happy.
“He’s got a pedigree as long as yer arm,” continued the stableman.
“Has he?” muttered Trevor.
“He can be registered ter-morrer, he can; he’s blue-blooded right through, he is.”