"How absurd!" says Vee.
Auntie gives me one of them cold storage looks of hers. "I have usually noticed," says she, "that things do not happen of themselves. Usually some one is responsible for their happening."
What she meant by that I couldn't quite make out. Oh yes, takin' a little rap at me, no doubt. But just how or what for I passed up. I might have forgotten it altogether if she hadn't reminded me now and then by favorin' me with a suspicious glare, the kind one of Mr. Palmer's agents might give to a party in a checked suit steppin' off the train from Montreal with something bulgin' on the hip.
So it was kind of unfortunate that when Vee suddenly remembers the Airedale pup and asks where he is that I should say just what I did. "Buddy?" says I. "Oh, he's all right. I shut him up myself."
It was a fact. I had. And I'd meant well by it. For that's one of the things we have to look out for when Auntie's visitin' us, to keep Buddy away from her. Not that there's anything vicious about Buddy. Not at all. But being only a year old and full of pep and affection, and not at all discriminatin', he's apt to be a bit boisterous in welcomin' visitors; and while some folks don't mind havin' fifty pounds of dog bounce at 'em sudden, or bein' clawed, or havin' their faces licked by a moist pink tongue, Auntie ain't one of that kind. She gets petrified and squeals for help and insists that the brute is trying to eat her up.
So as soon as I'd come home and had my usual rough-house session with Buddy, I leads him upstairs and carefully parks him in the south bedroom over the kitchen wing. Being thoughtful and considerate, I call that. Not to Buddy maybe, who's used to spendin' the dinner hour with his nose just inside the dinin' room door; but to Auntie, anyway.
Which is why I'm so surprised, along about 9 o'clock when Auntie has made an early start for a good night's rest, to hear these loud hostile woofs comin' from him and then these blood curdlin' screams.
"For the love of Mike!" I gasps. "Where did you put Auntie?"
"Why, in the south bedroom this time," says Vee.
"Hal-lup!" says I. "That's where I put Buddy."