"Hey, you, dog," he addressed Michael. "This fella boy he all right.
Savvee? He all right."

Michael bobbed his tail and flattened his ears in token that he was
trying to understand. When the steward patted the black on the shoulder,
Michael advanced and sniffed both the legs he had kept nailed to the
floor.

"Walk about," Daughtry commanded. "Walk about slow fella," he cautioned,
though there was little need.

Michael bristled, but permitted the first timid step. At the second he
glanced up at Daughtry to make certain.

"That's right," he was reassured. "That fella boy belong me. He all
right, you bet."

Michael smiled with his eyes that he understood, and turned casually
aside to investigate an open box on the floor which contained plates of
turtle-shell, hack-saws, and emery paper.

* * * * *

"And now," Dag Daughtry muttered weightily aloud, as, bottle in hand, he
leaned back in his arm-chair while Kwaque knelt at his feet to unlace his
shoes, "now to consider a name for you, Mister Dog, that will be just to
your breeding and fair to my powers of invention."