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Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson
page 94 of 232 (40%)
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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