Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson
page 94 of 232 (40%)
page 94 of 232 (40%)
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potato, some bread crusts, and the leavings of a broiled caller
herrin'. It was a generous breakfast for so small a dog, but Bobby had been without food for quite forty hours, and had done an amazing amount of work in the meantime. When he had eaten all of it, he was still hungry. As a polite hint, he polished the empty plate with his pink tongue and looked up expectantly; but the best-intentioned people, if they have had little to do with dogs, cannot read such signs. "Ye needna lick the posies aff," the wifie said, good humoredly, as she picked the plate up to wash it. She thought to put down a tin basin of water. Bobby lapped a' it so eagerly, yet so daintily, that she added: "He's a weel-broucht-up tyke, Jamie." "He is so. Noo, we'll see hoo weel he can leuk." In a shamefaced way he fetched from a tool-box a long-forgotten, strong little currycomb, such as is used on shaggy Shetland ponies. With that he proceeded to give Bobby such a grooming as he had never had before. It was a painful operation, for his thatch was a stubborn mat of crisp waves and knotty tangles to his plumy tail and down to his feathered toes. He braced himself and took the punishment without a whimper, and when it was done he stood cascaded with dark-silver ripples nearly to the floor. "The bonny wee!" cried Mistress Jeanie. "I canna tak' ma twa een aff o' 'im." "Ay, he's bonny by the ordinar'. It wad be grand, noo, gin the meenister'd fancy 'im an' tak' 'im into the manse." |
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