However, the neighbors along Garden Avenue presently spied a short, rotund man, progressing with reluctant step along the street, in his hand a leathern leash at the end of which ambled a pup whose physique was the occasion of some discussion among the dog-fanciers who beheld it.
"Blossom," said Mr. Pottle—it was after Pershing had outgrown two boxes and a large wash-basket—"you may say what you like but that dog of yours looks funny to me."
"How can you say that?" she retorted. "Just look at that long heavy coat. Look at that big, handsome head. Look at those knowing eyes, as if he understood every word we're saying."
"But his legs, Blossom, his legs!"
"They are a wee, tiny bit short," she confessed. "But he's still in his infancy. Perhaps we don't feed him often enough."
"No?" said Mr. Pottle with a rising inflection which had the perfume of sarcasm about it, "No? I suppose seven times a day, including once in the middle of the night isn't often enough?"
"Honestly, Ambrose, you'd think you were an early Christian martyr being devoured by tigers to hear all the fuss you make about getting up just once for five or ten minutes in the night to feed poor, hungry little Pershing."
"It hardly seems worth it," remarked Mr. Pottle, "with him turning out this way."
"What way?"