If anything, it was disappointment Michael experienced, in that this
delightful, two-legged god took no further notice of him. He even
challenged him to closer acquaintance with an invitation to play, with an
abrupt movement lifting his paws from the ground and striking them down,
stretched out well before, his body bent down from the rump in such a
curve that almost his chest touched the sand, his stump of a tail waving
signals of good nature while he uttered a sharp, inviting bark. And the
man was uninterested, pulling stolidly away at his pipe, in the darkness
following upon the third match.

Never was there a more consummate love-making, with all the base intent
of betrayal, than this cavalier seduction of Michael by the elderly, six-
quart ship's steward. When Michael, not entirely unwitting of the snub
of the man's lack of interest, stirred restlessly with a threat to
depart, he had flung at him gruffly:

"Stick around, dog, stick around."

Dag Daughtry chuckled to himself, as Michael, advancing, sniffed his
trousers' legs long and earnestly. And the man took advantage of his
nearness to study him some more, lighting his pipe and running over the
dog's excellent lines.

"Some dog, some points," he said aloud approvingly. "Say, dog, you could
pull down ribbons like a candy-kid in any bench show anywheres. Only
thing against you is that ear, and I could almost iron it out myself. A
vet. could do it."

Carelessly he dropped a hand to Michael's ear, and, with tips of fingers
instinct with sensuous sympathy, began to manipulate the base of the ear