Half an hour after the new tenant had taken possession of the house
next door, Miss Clementina Liddell looked out of her parlor window and
saw a small, brown dog making himself very much at home on her front
lawn.
Now, though the dog himself was small, his feet were not, and he was
industriously digging a hole in the middle of Miss Clementina's bed of
scarlet geraniums.
Miss Clementina was indignant. But for her unwillingness to speak to a
gentleman to whom she had not been properly introduced, she would have
promptly crossed the strip of grass between the two houses and
demanded that the intruder be forced to return to his own lawn.
As it was, she went out and attempted to "shoo" him off. But the
little brown dog would not shoo. He stopped digging, and, with much
waving of his stubby tail and a friendly bark or two, launched himself
at Miss Clementina.
She stepped hastily backward, but not before the front of her neat,
pink morning gown had been hopelessly soiled by the dog's muddy feet.
"You bad, bad dog," she scolded, energetically, emphasizing her words
by a lifted forefinger.
The little dog barked cheerfully and circled twice around her. He was
so frankly, so joyously irrepressible, that Miss Clementina did not
know whether to feel amused or vexed.
"Oh, well," she compromised, "I dare say you _mean_ well. And we can
fill up the hole you've dug, but I do hope you won't do it again."
She looked him over critically.
"You're thin," she decided, mentally; "shockingly thin. I'm afraid
your master doesn't feed you enough. He probably has an absurd notion
that a dog shouldn't be fed but once a day. I've heard of such things,
and I think it's positively inhuman."
Miss Clementina glanced furtively toward the house next door. No one
was in sight. She bent over the wriggling brown dog.
"You poor thing," she whispered, "come around to the kitchen. For once
in your life you shall have all you can eat."
It was a rash promise, and the keeping of it involved the chops for
luncheon and all the milk in the house.
"He's rather a nice dog, don't you think?" Miss Clementina said to the
maid, as she watched him eat. "But he has a dreadful appetite. I think
we'd best tell the butcher's boy to bring some dog's meat; chops are
so expensive."