gratitude. His old friends were not to be neglected, but it seemed
hardly decent to desert the new. This was how he solved the
problem. Every morning, as soon as the door was opened, of posted
Coolin to his uncle's, visited the children in the nursery, saluted
the whole family, and was back at home in time for breakfast and
his bit of fish. Nor was this done without a sacrifice on his
part, sharply felt; for he had to forego the particular honour and
jewel of his day - his morning's walk with my father. And, perhaps
from this cause, he gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice,
and at length returned entirely to his ancient habits. But the
same decision served him in another and more distressing case of
divided duty, which happened not long after. He was not at all a
kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed him with unusual kindness
during the distemper; and though he did not adore her as he adored
my father - although (born snob) he was critically conscious of her
position as "only a servant" - he still cherished for her a special
gratitude. Well, the cook left, and retired some streets away to
lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the same
situation with any young gentleman who has had the inestimable
benefit of a faithful nurse. The canine conscience did not solve
the problem with a pound of tea at Christmas. No longer content to
pay a flying visit, it was the whole forenoon that he dedicated to
his solitary friend. And so, day by day, he continued to comfort
her solitude until (for some reason which I could never understand
and cannot approve) he was kept locked up to break him of the
graceful habit. Here, it is not the similarity, it is the
difference, that is worthy of remark; the clearly marked degrees of
gratitude and the proportional duration of his visits. Anything
further removed from instinct it were hard to fancy; and one is
even stirred to a certain impatience with a character so destitute