“Bow! Bow-wow!” challenged Muggins.
Trevor heard an ejaculation of alarmed surprise, saw the form of the tall professor jump back, and then—then there was a crash, and Trevor, seizing the opportunity, was off like the wind, and had gained the doorway of Masters Hall ere the astonished professor had regained his feet. For Muggins in his excess of valor had got his small body between his adversary’s legs, and great and sudden was the fall. Trevor waited long at the entrance of Masters Hall, standing with door ajar and peering anxiously into the darkness; once even venturing upon a subdued whistle and a yearning “Muggins, Muggins!” But his appeals were vain, and after a while he crept dejectedly upstairs and back into his cold and Muggins-less bed, wondering, sorrowful, fearful of the morrow.
[CHAPTER XII]
MUGGINS IS EXPELLED
Dick learned the story the next morning while the boys were dressing, and, to Trevor’s pained surprise, subsided onto the hearth-rug, where he sprawled at length, and gave way to heartless mirth.
“Oh, I dare say you don’t care,” said Trevor with wounded dignity. “He wasn’t your dog. If he had been”—savagely—“I dare say I should have laughed!” Dick stopped rolling and sat up against the wood-box.
“But—but, don’t you see, Trevor,” he gurgled, “I’m—I’m not laughing because you’ve lost Buggins——”
“Muggins,” corrected Trevor coldly.
“I—I mean Muggins. I’m awfully sorry about that, honest injun! But—but think of Longworth—it must have been Longworth, you see—think of him rolling over there on the ice, all tangled up with Bug—Muggins and the chain! Oh, jiminy!” And Dick went off into another spasm of laughter.