meandering on, "with a queer story in it. I got to reading it
through, one night last winter. It was about a feller named
'Fed'rigo.' A wop of some kind, I guess. He got so hard up he
didn't have anything left but a pet falcon. Whatever a falcon may
be. Whatever it was, it must'a been good to eat. But he set a
heap of store by it. Him and it was chums. Same as me and Chum
are. Then along come a lady he was in love with. And she stopped
to his house for dinner. There wasn't anything in the house fit
for her to eat. So he fed her the falcon. Killed the pet that was
his chum, so's he could feed the dame he was stuck on. I thought,
when I read it, that that feller was more kinds of a swine than
I'd have time to tell you. But he wasn't any worse'n I'd be if I
was to--"

"I'm sorry you care so little for me," intervened Dorcas, her
voice very sweet and very cold, and her slender nose whitening a
little at the corners of the nostrils. "Of course if you prefer a
miserable dog to me, there's nothing more to be said. I--"

"No!" almost yelled the miserable man. "You've got me all wrong,
dearie. Honest, you have. Can't you understand? Your little
finger means a heap more to me than ev'rything else there
is--except the rest of you--"

"And your dog," she supplemented.

"No!" he denied fiercely. "You got no right to say that! But
Chum's served me faithful. And I can't kick him out like he was
a--"