IT STOPPED IN FRONT OF WILLIAM WITH A GLAD BARK OF WELCOME.
It gave a little spring and waited, front paws apart and crouching, a waggish eye upraised to William. William broke off a stick from the hedge and threw it. His visitor darted after it with a shrill bark, took it up, worried it, threw it into the air, caught it, growled at it, finally brought it back to William and waited, panting, eager, unmistakably grinning, begging for more.
William’s drooping spirits revived. He descended from his perch and examined its collar. It bore the one word “Jumble.”
“Hey! Jumble!” he called, setting off down the road.
Jumble jumped up around him, dashed off, dashed back, worried his boots, jumped up at him again in wild, eager friendship, dashed off again, begged for another stick, caught it, rolled over with it, growled at it, then chewed it up and laid the remains at William’s feet.
“Good ole chap!” said William encouragingly. “Good ole Jumble! Come on, then.”
Jumble came on. William walked through the village with a self-conscious air of proud yet careless ownership, while Jumble gambolled round his heels.
Every now and then he would turn his head and whistle imperiously, to recall his straying protégé from the investigation of ditches and roadside. It was a whistle, commanding, controlling, yet withal careless, that William had sometimes practised privately in readiness for the blissful day when Fate should present him with a real live dog of his own. So far Fate, in the persons of his father and mother, had been proof against all his pleading.
William passed a blissful morning. Jumble swam in the pond, he fetched sticks out of it, he shook himself violently all over William, he ran after a hen, he was chased by a cat, he barked at a herd of cows, he pulled down a curtain that was hanging out in a cottage garden to dry—he was mischievous, affectionate, humorous, utterly irresistible—and he completely adopted William. William would turn a corner with a careless swagger and then watch breathlessly to see if the rollicking, frisky little figure would follow, and always it came tearing eagerly after him.