He was even allowed, with certain restrictions, to come into the
mysterious house itself. Nor, after one defiant bark at a
leopard-skin rug, did he molest anything therein. In the house,
too, he found a genuine cave:--a wonderful place to lie and watch
the world at large, and to stay cool in and to pretend he was a
wolf. The cave was the deep space beneath the piano in the music
room. It seemed to have a peculiar charm to Lad. To the end of
his days, by the way, this cave was his chosen resting place.
Nor, in his lifetime, did any other dog set foot therein.

So much for "all day and every day." But the nights were
different.

Lad hated the nights. In the first place, everybody went to bed
and left him alone. In the second, his hard-hearted owners made
him sleep on a fluffy rug in a corner of the veranda instead of
in his delectable piano-cave. Moreover, there was no food at
night. And there was nobody to play with or to go for walks with
or to listen to. There was nothing but gloom and silence and
dullness. When a puppy takes fifty cat-naps in the course of the
day, he cannot always be expected to sleep the night through. It
is too much to ask. And Lad's waking hours at night were times of
desolation and of utter boredom. True, he might have consoled
himself, as does many a lesser pup, with voicing his woes in a
series of melancholy howls. That, in time, would have drawn
plenty of human attention to the lonely youngster; even if the
attention were not wholly flattering.

But Lad did not belong to the howling type. When he was unhappy,
he waxed silent. And his sorrowful eyes took on a deeper woe. By