While the bells played "There Grows a Bonny Briarbush in Our Kale
Yard," Auld Jock and Bobby slept. They slept while the tavern
emptied itself of noisy guests and clattering crockery was
washed at the dingy, gas-lighted windows that overlooked the
cockpit. They slept while the cold fell with the falling day and
the mist was whipped into driving rain. Almost a cave, between
shelving rock and house wall, a gust of wind still found its way
in now and then. At a splash of rain Auld Jock stirred uneasily
in his sleep. Bobby merely sniffed the freshened air with
pleasure and curled himself up for another nap.

No rain could wet Bobby. Under his rough outer coat, that was
parted along the back as neatly as the thatch along a cottage
ridge-pole, was a dense, woolly fleece that defied wind and rain,
snow and sleet to penetrate. He could not know that nature had
not been as generous in protecting his master against the
weather. Although of a subarctic breed, fitted to live
shelterless if need be, and to earn his living by native wit,
Bobby had the beauty, the grace, and the charming manners of a
lady's pet. In a litter of prick-eared, wire-haired puppies Bobby
was a "sport."

It is said that some of the ships of the Spanish Armada,
with French poodles in the officers' cabins, were blown far north
and west, and broken up on the icy coasts of The Hebrides and
Skye. Some such crossing of his far-away ancestry, it would
seem, had given a greater length and a crisp wave to Bobby's
outer coat, dropped and silkily fringed his ears, and powdered
his useful, slate-gray color with silver frost. But he had the