more agility than dignity, and watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed
under the cart, his ears down, and as much as he had of tail down too.

What a man this must be,--thought I,--to whom my tremendous hero turns
tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his
neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought,
and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter, alone were worthy
to rehearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to
say, "Rab, ma man, puir Rabbie!"--whereupon the stump of a tail rose up,
the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted; the two
friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of the whip were given to
Jess; and off went the three.

Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a tea)
in the back-green of his house, in Melville Street, No. 17, with
considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the Iliad,
and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector, of course.



Six years have passed,--a long time for a boy and a dog: Bob Ainslie is
off to the wars; I am a medical student, and clerk at Minto House
Hospital. Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday; and we had much
pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching
of his huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he
would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a
tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master
I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was laconic
as any Spartan.