“Of course it was a foolish thing to do,” he said, “but lots of chaps wouldn’t have had the courage to do it. They’d have just sat around and been miserable and unhappy.”
“That’s all right,” said Alf, “but if Faculty had caught him it would have been all up. It was the craziest thing I ever heard of. Somebody’s got to pump some sense into that kid, Dan.”
“Oh, he won’t cut up that way again,” Dan replied. “I think it’s done him good. And old Kilts acting the way he did helped a lot. Gerald had got it into his head that Kilts and Collins and the whole Faculty were sitting up nights trying to devise ways to make trouble for him. Now he thinks that Kilts is just about right, and that has given him hope for the rest of them. I’m not sure, but I think Gerald’s going to settle down now and take things easier.”
“Sure to,” said Tom. “It’s like Cæsar Augustus.”
“Who’s he?” asked Dan and Alf in a breath.
“He was a dog. Now he’s a dog-angel. I had him when I was just a youngster.”
“Listen to the doddering, decrepit old idiot,” observed Alf in an aside.
“He was just a puppy when I got him; about three months old. Don’t ask me what sort of a dog he was, for no one ever knew. In fact, it was such a mystery that no one ever dared to guess. Well, Cæsar Augustus used to trouble about the cat when he first came. The cat was an old, experienced codger and used to sit on the kitchen windowsill, where the cook kept her geraniums, and blink and purr all day long. Cæsar Augustus lived under the stove, except when I dragged him out by the nape of the neck and poured milk down his throat. For we just had to make him eat. He’d sit there with his head sticking out and watch the cat for hours, and tremble and whine and get thin and pine away. You see, that cat worried him silly. He couldn’t understand her; didn’t know what she was made for, what she was good for or anything else. That went on for about a month. Then, driven to desperation one day, Cæsar Augustus crawled out from under the stove and went for the cat. Cook and I rescued him after he’d made about six trips around the room with the cat on his back. We washed the blood off, smeared his wounds with mutton tallow and fed him raw steak to heal his sorrow. Sorrow! He didn’t have any! He was happy as a lark, rolled over and played, ate his steak as though he’d been living on it for years, and was a changed dog. Never had an unhappy moment afterwards.”
“Well,” laughed Alf, “and what’s the moral—the lesson to be derived from your charming tale?”