CHAPTER I

A DOG AND A DAMSEL

As I sat on a bench in Madison Square after half past eleven in the
evening, at the end of one of those mild days that sometimes occur in
New York even at the beginning of December, a dog came trotting up to
me, stopped at my feet, and whined.

There is nothing remarkable in having a strange dog run to one nor in
seeing the creature rise on its hind legs and paw at you for notice and
a caress. Only, this happened to be an Eskimo dog.

It might have been mistaken for a collie or a sheepdog by nearly
everybody who saw it, though most men would have turned to admire the
softness of its fur and to glance at the heavy collar with the silver
studs. But I knew the Eskimo breed, having spent a summer in Labrador.

I stroked the beast, which lay down at my feet, raising its head
sometimes to whine, and sometimes darting off a little way and coming
back to tug at the lower edge of my overcoat. But my mind was too much
occupied for me to take any but a perfunctory interest in its
manoeuvres. My eight years of thankless drudgery as a clerk, following
on a brief adventurous period after I ran away to sea from my English
home, had terminated three days before, upon receipt of a legacy, and I
had at once left Tom Carson's employment.

Six thousand guineas--thirty thousand dollars--the will said. I had