Only for me would he work. Not a dump did he care for keeper or any other body, but just went his own wilful way.
He was gentle as a lamb. Little children and small dogs might do as they liked with him. My daughter's pug regarded him with a mixture of intense jealousy and reverence, but that did not prevent Toby from occasionally attacking him tooth and nail, much to the amusement of Smoker.
He was free of the library, and a constant partaker of five o'clock tea when not out at work.
For many years Smoker, in the season, worked on grouse, with Daisy, a setter bitch, and with other dogs.
There was great jealousy between him and Daisy, but both good natured over it.
Daisy was very fond, if she could manage to elude attention, of quietly retrieving a bird, and it was as good as a play to observe her delight and his indignation at her encroachment upon his part of the work.
I could tell endless tales of his ability and intelligence.
When not at work, he was the laziest of dogs, but any symptoms of shooting about he was all life. His great object was, then, to get hold of my shooting cape. He had some idiotic notion that he had a lien upon me by so doing, and that I was bound to go out to shoot.
On one occasion I was away from home, and a lady in the house induced him to walk with her in the garden.
As she went through the porch, she took my walking stick.