wild. He never forgot his days of circus imprisonment as a wild beast.
He never for one instant reverted to the gaily credulous attitude toward
mankind which had helped the dog-stealers to kidnap him after the first
great triumph of his youth, when he defeated all comers, from puppy and
novice to full-fledged champion, and carried off the blue riband of his
year at the Crystal Palace. Well-mannered he would always be; but in
these later days his attitude toward all humans, and most animal folk
outside his own household, was characterized by a gravely alert and
watchful kind of reserve. As the Master once said, in talking on his
homeward way to England of that dog-stealing episode of the wolfhound's
salad days:

"It would take a tough and wily old thief to tempt Finn across a
garden-path nowadays, with the best doctored meat ever prepared. And as
for really getting away with him--well, they're welcome to try; and I
fancy they'd get pretty well all they deserve from old Finn, without the
law's assistance."

Betty Murdoch--round-figured, rosy, high-spirited, a great lover of out
of doors, and aged now twenty-two--had been much exercised in her mind
as to what Finn would think of her, when he arrived at Nuthill, after
the long railway journey from Plymouth. She had seen the wolfhound only
once before, when she was somewhat less grown-up and he was still in
puppyhood, before the visit to Australia. The Master, who went specially
to Plymouth to fetch Finn, said Betty must expect a certain reserve at
first in the wolfhound's attitude.

"He can't possibly remember you, of course, and, nowadays, he is not
effusive, not very ready to make new friends."