I was in the midst of this sombre occupation, with no companion but my angry reflections and no witness but Dix, who was plainly aware that something unusual was going on and showed his intense anxiety, in the only method that dull humanity has yet learned to catalogue as Dog-talk: by moving around, wagging his stump of a twist-tail and making odd, uneasy sounds and movements. His evident anxiety about me presently attracted my attention, and I began to think what I should do with him. I knew old Mrs. Upshur would take and care for him as she would for anything of mine; but Dix, though the best tempered of canines, had his standards, which he lived up to like a gentleman, and he brooked no insolence from his inferiors or equals and admitted no superiors. Moreover, he needed out-door exercise as all sound creatures do, and this poor, old decrepit Mrs. Upshur could not give him. I discarded for one reason or another my many acquaintances, and gradually Jeams took precedence in my mind and held it against all reasoning. He was drunken and worthless—he would possibly, at times, neglect Dix, and at others, would certainly testify his pride in him and prove his confidence by making him fight; but he adored the dog and he feared me somewhat. As I wavered there was a knock and Jeams walked in. He was dressed in my long frock coat and his large, gray hat was on the back of his head—a sure sign that he was tight, even had not his dishevelled collar and necktie and his perspiring countenance given evidence of his condition. As he stood in the door, his hand went up to his hat; but at sight of the room, he dropped it before he could reach the hat and simply stared at me in blank amazement.
"Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered.
"Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered.
"Packing up."
"Where you goin'?"
"Going away."