THE BLACK-EYED PUPPY

I hardly knew what to do, I was so glad.

THE
BLACK-EYED PUPPY

WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY
KATHARINE PYLE
AUTHOR OF “TALES OF TWO BUNNIES,” “LAZY MATILDA,” ETC.

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE

Copyright, 1923
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

I   AM a little white, rough-haired dog, with a black spot around one eye, and black ears and tail.

I am about the size of a terrier or a spaniel, but I’m not really either. At one time I thought I might be a poodle, but then it turned out I wasn’t. I’m just not any special kind of dog. My mother wasn’t any special kind either. She was a smooth-haired white dog. Fan was the only one of us puppies that looked like mother.

There were five of us. There were Rover and Fanny, and Jack and Snip, and then me. My name was Smarty, but it isn’t now.

[2]We belonged to a man named O’Grady. It was he who gave us our names, and he named me Smarty because I was so smart. He said I was the smartest puppy he had ever seen. I heard him telling someone that. He said, “Why, that pup can almost talk; I believe he understands every word I say.” Of course I didn’t, but that’s what he said. I did understand a good deal, though.

I was the only one of the puppies that he kept. He gave the others away to different people. He kept only mother and me. Mother was getting sort of old and cross. She used to growl when I tried to play with her.

Mr. O’Grady used to play with me in the evenings while he smoked his pipe. He called it playing, but it was rough sort of play. Sometimes he made me yelp. And he used to blow tobacco smoke in my face. I hated that. It made me feel sick.

He spent part of the time teaching me tricks.[3] He taught me to sit up and beg, and to roll over and keep quiet when he said “dead dog,” and to hold something on my nose until he gave the word, and then to throw it up in the air and catch it.

He liked to make me show off before people when they came in in the evenings. They seemed to think I was very smart. I wonder what they would have thought later on when I belonged to Mr. Bonelli and was really a trick dog and acted on a stage, with crowds of people there to look on!

There was one trick I had that nobody taught me. It just came to me naturally. I had a way of lifting my lips when I was pleased and drawing them back so that I showed all my teeth. Mr. O’Grady called it grinning. Everybody seemed to think that the funniest trick of any that I did.

As it turned out later, that was the best trick of all. Things would have been very different with me if I hadn’t had that trick of grinning.

When I was big enough Mr. O’Grady began to[4] take me to the factory with him. The factory was the place where he went to work.

He would tie me in the factory yard and leave me there until the noon hour when he and the other men stopped working to eat their dinners. Then he would come for me and take me in where they were. The men used to throw me scraps from their dinner pails. I liked that, but after they had finished eating they would begin to tease me. They thought it was funny, but I used to get so mad at them I felt like tearing them to pieces; but I was only a puppy and couldn’t really hurt them, so they thought that was funny too.

One day—it was a cold day in winter—it seemed to me they teased me worse than ever before. I just yelped at them, I got so mad.

When the whistles blew for the men to go back to work Mr. O’Grady took me out in the yard again and tied me to the post. “There! You stay there and cool off your temper,” he said. Then he went back into the factory again.

[5]But I wasn’t going to stay there. I made up my mind to run away and go to live with someone else, where I wouldn’t be teased.

I took the piece of twine he had tied me with between my teeth and gnawed and gnawed, and presently, in a very little while, I gnawed it in two.

I ran over to the fence and squeezed through a hole, and then I was out in the open street.

I ran on gaily down the street, sometimes on three legs and sometimes on four. I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but it was fun to run along all by myself, and not have to follow at the heels of anyone.

Presently I came to an open alley gate. I went inside and found a garbage can that smelled of things to eat. I pawed it over and had a fine time hunting among the scraps, but presently a woman came to the door and shouted at me to get out. She had a broom in her hand, and she seemed cross so I ran out into the street again in a hurry. I didn’t even stop to take a bone with me.

[6]A little farther down the street I met another puppy. He was just about my size and we made friends and had a fine play together, but someone opened a door near-by and called to him to come home, and he ran away and left me.

It was growing late now, and getting colder too. The wind was so sharp it made me shiver. It had begun to snow, and it kept snowing harder and harder, and the wind blew the snow in my eyes till I could hardly see where I was going.

I thought I’d better find some place where I could creep in and keep warm until morning, and then maybe I would go home again. I knew Mr. O’Grady would be sorry because I had run away. But then he oughtn’t to have let the men tease me the way they did. And he had laughed when they did it, as though he thought it funny, instead of telling them to stop.

I had come now to a street where all the houses were big and had big windows with lights shining[7] out of them. They all had brown stone steps going up to their front doors. Down under these steps were other doors. These other doors were lower than the street, and had steps going down to them. I found afterwards they were called basement doors, but I didn’t know it then. I thought I would get down in one of these basements and wait there till it stopped snowing. Anyway, I would be out of the wind.

I ran down the first steps I came to and crouched against the door. It wasn’t very warm there, but anyway it was better than being up in the street.

It kept on getting colder and colder, and I felt so lonesome that presently I began to whine.

I’d only been whining a little while when I heard something inside the door snuffing at the crack, and then a low growl.

I put my nose down to the crack and I sniffed, too, and then I could tell by the smell that there was a dog on the other side of the door. I whined[8] again, and then I heard two dogs snuffing at the crack. They both growled in an angry way, and first one and then the other began barking. They barked louder and louder.

Someone inside opened the door right quick before I expected it, and both the dogs came rushing out at me, barking fiercely.

They were only little dogs, but they made such a noise they scared me. I yelped and ran up the steps to the street as fast as I could, with them after me.

I thought they would certainly bite me, but someone called to them and they ran on down the steps again, looking back to bark at me once or twice.

After they had gone in the house again I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to go down in any of the other basements for fear some other dogs might get after me.

I howled and howled.

I stood there shivering for a while, and then I went up the brown stone steps and got in a corner of the doorway there. The wind was so cold and[9] I was so lonesome and miserable that I began to howl. I howled and howled, and the snow blew against me, and all up and down the street there didn’t seem to be anything alive but me.

Then suddenly the door I was leaning against opened. It opened so quickly that I almost fell over backward.

In the doorway stood a man, looking down at me. A boy was peeping around the door.

“There he is, father, down in the corner,” cried the boy.

The man stooped and picked me up by the scruff of the neck, and lifted me into the hall and shut the door. “The poor miserable little beast,” he said. I was so cold I could hardly stand.

The boy knelt down beside me and patted me. “He’s almost frozen,” he said.

“He would have been frozen by morning. Take him down and put him in the laundry, and tomorrow we’ll see what we can do with him.”

“I wish I could keep him,” said the boy.

[10]He got up and coaxed me along the hall, and I followed him as best I could, but I was so stiff I could hardly move.

He took me down some steps and into a big room that had hardly anything in it, but it was warm and comfortable.

“Now, you stay here,” said the boy, “and I’ll get you something to eat.”

He ran away, shutting the door after him, but presently he came back again with a plate of food and set it down before me.

I was so hungry I ate and ate. “Why, you poor little fellow,” he cried, “you’re almost starved.” And then he said, “I believe I’ll call you Ragamuffin, and Rags for short. Or no; I’ll call you Muffins. That’s a good name. Poor little Muffins! Good Muffins!”

I wanted to tell him my name was Smarty, but I was busy eating, and then he wouldn’t have understood me anyway.

[11]All the while I was eating I kept wagging my tail to show him how pleased I was, and when I finished the last scrap I looked up in his face and licked my lips and grinned.

“Why, you cute little fellow!” he cried. “You’re grinning!” He seemed to think it was just as cute as everybody else did.

He patted me and praised me, and then he went away and got a piece of carpet and folded it up and put it in a corner of the room for a bed for me to sleep on.

I was so full and comfortable that I went right over and curled up on it, and then I looked up at him and wagged my tail and grinned again.

“Oh, I do hope I can keep you, Muffins,” he said; “you’re so cunning.” And he patted me again and then he went away and left me, and I was so sleepy I just sighed and shut my eyes and went to sleep, and never knew anything more until it was morning again.

WHEN I first opened my eyes I hardly knew where I was. Then I remembered. I was in the laundry, and I hadn’t had any breakfast yet. It was lonesome there, all by myself. I began to whine and yelp. I yelped louder and louder. Presently I heard somebody coming. I cocked my head on one side and listened, and then I began to wag my tail for I felt sure it was the boy. And it was.

He opened the door and came in, and patted me and made a fuss over me. “Poor Muffins,” he said. “Poor boy! Poor little fellow! I know you were lonesome. Come on, boy! Come on!”

He led the way out and up the stairs, and I followed close at his heels.

[13]We went along a hall and into a big bright room that smelled of food. Some people were sitting at the table eating—two of them. There was the man I had seen the night before and a lady. The boy called her mother.

“Look, mother!” he said. “Isn’t he a cunning little fellow? Mayn’t I keep him? Please say I may.”

“Oh, Tommy!” said the lady. And then I didn’t hear her say anything else, because two little dogs rushed out from under the table and began barking at me. They were the very same dogs that had chased me out of the basement the night before. There was another little dog, and she barked, too, but she stayed under the table.

The dogs came at me and I thought they were going to jump on me, so I barked and showed my teeth, but Tommy drove them away, and the lady called to them and hit at them with a white cloth she had in her lap.

[14]The gentleman said, “Take him away, Tommy. Shut him up somewhere until after breakfast.”

So I was taken downstairs again and shut up in the same room where I had been before, but the boy brought me some breakfast,—all I could eat, so I didn’t mind.

I did hope I was going to stay and not be sent away, and that I could be Tommy’s dog and not have to go back to the O’Gradys’. I loved that boy and he loved me, and I wanted to be his dog.

And so I was. Somehow I had been afraid the lady would send me away, but she didn’t; not just then, anyway. I stayed and stayed, for days and days and days and days.

The lady didn’t like me much, and the dogs didn’t like me at all.

The boy brought me some breakfast.

The names of the three dogs were Prince Coco and Bijou and Fifine. Prince Coco was rather old and fat. Fifine was a snappish little dog. I liked Bijou best, but they were all very proud and haughty with me. They were the kind of[15] dogs that are called Pekinese. They said that was the finest kind of dog that any dog could be, and Prince Coco told me he and the others were very handsome and worth a great deal of money. (Money is what you give to people when you want to get something from them.)

He asked me what kind of a dog I was, and I had to tell him I didn’t know, I guessed I wasn’t any particular kind of a dog; and after that they were prouder with me than ever. Fifine said she thought it was very hard that they should have to associate with such a common little dog as I was. She said it was something she had never expected to do.

Prince Coco never was friendly with me, but Bijou was sometimes, if the other dogs weren’t there; but as soon as they came in he treated me in just the same sort of proud way the others did. It didn’t make me very happy, but I didn’t mind much.

One day Fifine was talking again about my being[16] there. She was talking to Prince Coco, and I was under the sofa pretending to be asleep, but she knew I heard her. “I don’t see why our mistress allows him to stay,” she said. “He’s not at all like any dogs I ever associated with before. He’s just like those common little dogs we see running about the street when we go out riding in the automobile.”

Prince Coco yawned and stretched and rolled over on his side. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said. “He won’t be here much longer now.”

I pricked up my ears when I heard that.

“Why not?” asked Fifine.

“I heard the mistress talking this morning when Mary was brushing my hair. She said Tommy seemed so fond of ‘the little stray’ (as she called him) that she hadn’t had the heart to send him away just yet; but soon Tommy would be having a holiday and then they were all going off for a[17] visit, and William was to give Muffins to a friend of his.”

(William was the man who made the automobile go, and Mary waited on the mistress.)

When Prince Coco said that I jumped up.

“Tommy won’t let them send me away,” I barked.

“Oh! so you weren’t asleep after all,” said Prince Coco in his lazy voice; and Fifine snarled, “Just pretending!”

“Yes, I was pretending,” said I, “and I heard all you said, and if you think Tommy’s going to let them send me away you’re mistaken, so you needn’t be counting on that!”

And then I marched out of the room and didn’t stop to hear anything else they might say. But for all that I spoke up that way, so bravely, I was worried, and I went upstairs and crawled in under Tommy’s bed and lay there till he came home; and then when I heard him I ran down to meet him,[18] and we had such a fine play that I forgot all about what Prince Coco had been saying. As long as Tommy loved me and kept me with him, I didn’t care what any one else said.

TOMMY had to go to school every day, and while he was away I either stayed in the house or played in the backyard. I had some bones out there and an old rubber ball someone had thrown over the fence, and I played with them. Now and then a cat scrambled up on the fence and walked along it, and I barked at the cat.

Once one fell off in our yard and I almost caught it, but it put up its back and spit at me, so I thought I’d better not, and it ran up the fence again and jumped over into the next yard.

The other dogs never would play with me. I think maybe Bijou would have liked to but he was ashamed. The other dogs seemed to think it was common to play.

[20]Mary used to take them out for a walk in the street every day, with a leather strap fastened to each of their collars so they wouldn’t run away or get lost. I wished I could go too; but she never took me. It must have been fun out in the street, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be held by a strap.

Tommy had given me a very pretty collar. It was red and had a bright buckle. The other dogs were disgusted because I had one. They said only fine dogs such as they were ought to have collars, and that it was absurd for me to have one too. But I didn’t care. I felt very proud that Tommy had given it to me. It made me seem more his dog than ever.

I tried to make friends with Tommy’s mother, but she didn’t seem to want to be friends with me. His father used to speak to me sometimes, and once or twice he patted me. He said I was a funny little dog.

I wished I could go too.

There was a big room they called the drawing-room.[21] It had soft rugs and big soft chairs and sofas, and there was almost always a fire in the fireplace. The other dogs often went in there and slept in front of the fire or on the furniture. I tried to do it once or twice too, but always someone came and drove me out just as I got settled, and James was so cross about it that I stopped going in there after a while. James was the man who worked about and did things with the food. They called him a butler.

Sometimes, in the afternoons, ladies and gentlemen came to the house to visit Tommy’s mother. They went in the drawing-room and laughed and talked, and Mary or James would carry in a tray with plates of cakes, and cups, and saucers and things. Fifine said it was afternoon tea, but I smelled cake, too.

Sometimes Mary came and called the other dogs and took them in there, but she never called me. Once I tried to go along, but she drove me back,[22] and Prince Coco snarled at me. Often, when Mary took them in, I would hear the ladies cry, “What perfect little ducks of dogs!” Or, “What loves of little doggies!”

When the dogs came back again they were always prouder then ever. They would tell me how the different ladies had petted them and praised them, and had given them bits of cake,—only little bits, because the mistress said too much cake wasn’t good for little doggies. They would lick their lips and tell me how delicious the cake was, until it made my mouth water to hear about it.

Often after they had gone I would lie there and think, “If I could only get in there once, without Mary seeing me, I would soon show the people what a clever little dog I am. I would grin, and beg, and play dead dog. How surprised and pleased they would all be! And the mistress,—she would be pleased, too, and when she saw how[23] smart everybody thought I was she’d be glad to have me there. If only someone would think of putting a piece of cake on my nose, then I could show them that trick, too—the trick where I throw the cake up in the air and catch it again—only of course nobody knew about that, so they wouldn’t think of trying it.”

I used to lie there in the nursery and dream about it while the other little dogs were downstairs having a good time.

One day all four of us dogs were up in Tommy’s sitting-room (Mary and the mistress called it the nursery, but Tommy called it the sitting-room), and two or three times we heard the front door open and shut and visitors talking.

“I wonder if they’ll send for us?” said Fifine lazily. “I just feel like a bit of cake this afternoon.”

She was lying stretched out in Tommy’s chair. I hated to see her there. That was my place.

[24]“I don’t know,” said Bijou. “But if they do, I hope Mary will brush my hair first. It looks rather rough today, and it’s always so glossy when it’s brushed.”

Just then Mary came to the door. “Come, Prince,” she said. “Come, Bijou and Fifine. The mistress wants you.”

The three little dogs jumped up and ran toward her, and I did, too. I thought maybe this time she would let me come along, but she just said, “Go back, Muffins! You can’t come. You’re not wanted”; and Prince Coco looked back and snarled, “I should think you would have learned by this time that you’re not a company dog.”

I didn’t say anything—just lay down again, but I thought, “I’ll show you in a little while whether I’m a company dog or not.” I’d made up my mind that I’d get into the drawing-room this time in spite of Mary.

[25]Tommy was away that afternoon. Sometimes he didn’t come home till dinner time. I think he went to visit other little boys.

I waited until Mary had had plenty of time to take the others to the drawing-room and leave them there, and then I got up and stole out into the entry and down the stairs. There was no one in the hall below, but I could hear the visitors talking and laughing beyond the curtains of the drawing-room door. I slipped between the curtain and the side of the doorway, and then I was in the room.

It was full of people talking and laughing, and at first no one noticed me. The mistress was sitting at a table pouring something into a cup. One lady was sitting near her with Fifine in her lap, and Prince Coco and Bijou were waiting in front of the table for cake. A gentleman was standing near the table with a cup in his hand. He was the first one to notice me.

[26]“There’s another little dog,” he said. “Is this your dog, too, Mrs. Stanford?”

Then the mistress saw me. She gave a cry. “Oh, it’s that miserable little stray,” she said. “He came here at the time of the blizzard, and howled at the door. Tommy found him and brought him in, and begged to keep him for awhile. I don’t know how the dog managed to steal in here. Ring the bell, please, for James to take him away.”

When she said that I knew I’d have to hurry if I wanted the people to see my tricks, so first I rolled over and played “dead dog,” and then I sat up and grinned and waved my paws, and then I barked.

“My word! He’s a clever little chap,” said the gentleman, and he tossed me a bit of cake.

It fell on the floor beside me, and quick as a flash Bijou jumped to get it. But I was quicker than he was. I growled and shoved him aside and grabbed it up and swallowed it.

I sat up and waved my paws.

[27]I guess Bijou was disappointed and so he felt like fighting me. Maybe he was jealous, too, because the gentleman noticed me. At any rate before I knew what he was going to do he jumped on me with a snarl and bit me.

I was so surprised I tumbled over against the gentleman, and he said, “My word!” and his teacup upset and the hot tea came down on me.

The mistress cried out, “Oh, that miserable dog! Oh, I’m so sorry!” And then James came in, and the mistress said, “James, take that dog out and shut him up somewhere.”

James picked me up and carried me out, and he held me so tight I yelped. Out in the hall he dropped me and pushed me with his foot. “Go on upstairs!” he said in a low, fierce voice. “Go on!” And I ran up, and hid under the sofa in the nursery. I was so miserable I didn’t know what to do. I did hope the other dogs wouldn’t come up there. I was ashamed to see them. But it hadn’t been my[28] fault; it was Bijou’s. Only nobody seemed to think of that. If Tommy had been there he would have known. I was his dog, and he loved me and thought I was cute, even if nobody else did like me or want to have me around.

I   DIDN’T see the other dogs until the next day. They came up in the nursery only now and then,—mostly when there wasn’t any fire in the drawing-room or when the mistress was out.

I think she must have been out the next afternoon, and the fire, too, because they came trotting upstairs soon after lunch and came in where I was. I had jumped up in Tommy’s chair and was lying there. I liked to lie in his chair, and someone had laid a cushion on it that morning, so it was soft and warm.

Fifine came over toward the chair and looked at me in a snarly way, and I knew she wanted me to get out of it and let her have it, but I wouldn’t.

Prince Coco sat down close against the radiator. He always chose the hottest place. He yawned,[30] and then he looked over at me in sort of a proud, lazy way.

“Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself with the visitors yesterday,” he said. “Fighting before them all, and upsetting the tea and everything!”

The way he said it made me so mad I couldn’t help growling.

“Perfectly disgraceful,” snarled Fifine. “I never was so ashamed in my life. I’m glad the mistress told them you were Tommy’s dog, and didn’t belong with us.”

I didn’t answer,—just kept up a low growling.

Bijou didn’t say anything. I think he was afraid. I kept watching him, and if he had said anything I was going to jump on him and show him which was the better dog. I was still mad at him for biting me the day before. I think he knew this, for he went over and lay down under the sofa, and then presently he got up again and went out.

Prince Coco kept on mumbling, and I didn’t[31] know whether he was talking to himself or me. “Oh, well! What’s the difference? They’re going away this week, and then it’s good-bye Muffins. You won’t be here long after they go.”

I did wish he would stop talking that way.

A door banged downstairs, and I heard Tommy whistle for me. At once I forgot Prince Coco and all he had been saying. I bounded out of my chair and tore downstairs. There was Tommy waiting for me below. He threw his school-books over on a chair, and then we had a fine romp. We had the rugs all tangled up together and the chairs crooked before we were through.

It was several days before I thought any more of what Prince Coco had said.

Then one morning I heard a bumping sound out in the hall, and I ran out to see what was going on. James was bringing a big leather box down the stairs from the third story. Bijou was out there watching him.

[32]“What’s he bringing that box down for?” I asked.

Bijou and I were friendly again now. He was often friendly with me when the other dogs were not there, and I liked him better than the others, even if he had bitten me that time.

“It isn’t a box, it’s a trunk,” said he. “Every time the family is going away James brings the trunks down and Mary put the clothes in them, and then she shuts the trunks and men come and take them away.”

“So bringing down the trunks means people are going away?”

“Yes,” said Bijou.

“The Mistress and the Master, and Tommy, too?”

“Yes.”

That worried me.

James took that trunk into the mistress’s room, and he went up and brought down another and put[33] it in the master’s room, and then he brought still another and put it in Tommy’s room.

He lifted the top of the one in Tommy’s room, and took part of the trunk out and set it on the floor.

I had followed him into Tommy’s room, and after he went away I jumped in the trunk and sniffed about, but I couldn’t tell much about it except that it smelled of Tommy’s clothes.

After a while Mary came into the room. When she saw me she said, “Get out of that, Muffins. You’re too curious.”

I jumped out of the trunk and sat down by it and watched her. She went over and opened Tommy’s closet and his bureau drawers, and began taking out his clothes and putting them in the trunk. After a while she had it almost full. I sat and watched her. Then she went out of the room for something.

As soon as she had gone I got up and looked into[34] the trunk again. All those clothes of Tommy’s were going, and if I were in the trunk I would go, too.

Right away I knew what to do. I jumped into the trunk and scratched up some of the clothes and got down in a corner and put my head down underneath them, and then I lay there and kept perfectly still.

Soon Mary came back into the room. She moved about and shut a bureau drawer, and then she came over to the trunk. I could hear her.

“Tsch!” she said. “Whoever has been at this trunk!” Then she lifted something off my head. “Well I never!” she cried.

I didn’t move, except that I couldn’t help shaking. I just lay still and pretended I wasn’t there.

Tommy must have come home, for I heard his whistle, but I only snuggled down still further in the trunk, and hoped Mary would go away and forget about me.

I pretended I wasn’t there.

[35]Presently he came upstairs, and I heard him asking, “Where is Muffins?”

“He’s in here, Master Tommy!” called Mary.

He came in the room. I could tell by the sound, though I didn’t lift my head or stir.

“Look in here,” said Mary.

Tommy came over to the trunk and looked into it.

“The little beggar!” he cried. “How did he get in there?”

“He must have jumped in while I was out of the room,” said Mary.

“Did you ever know such a dog!” cried Tommy.

A moment after he took hold of me. “Come out of there, you little beggar,” he said.

I tried to get further down under the clothes, but Tommy lifted me out. He was laughing in a funny way, and he put his face against me.

“If you’re not the limit!” he said. “I believe[36] he knows I’m going away, Mary, and he wants to go with me.”

Of course that was what I wanted. I wouldn’t have hidden in the trunk if I hadn’t hoped to go along.

“I don’t see why I can’t take him,” said Tommy. “I’m going to ask mother whether I can’t.”

“You can ask her, but you know she won’t let you,” said Mary.

I suppose she wouldn’t let him, for I know I didn’t go.

The next day the automobile came to the door early and the trunks were carried out, and then Tommy and his father and mother came downstairs with their hats on, and when I jumped up on Tommy he said, “I’m sorry, but you can’t go, old fellow.”

James caught me by the collar and pulled me back. I almost snapped him, he bothered me so. I did snarl and try to wriggle away from him, but I couldn’t.

[37]Then Mary opened the outside door and Tommy and his father and mother went down the steps, and when they were part way down Tommy looked back and called, “Good-bye, Muffins! I’ll be back soon. Take good care of him while I’m away, James. Good-bye!”

And then Mary shut the door, and they were gone.

Prince Coco yawned and stretched himself. “Well, now we’ll have some peace and quiet, with Tommy out of the house!” he said.

That made me so mad I growled and flew at him, but James turned back and said, “Here! Here! None of that! What’s the matter with you, Muffins, anyway?”

Coco didn’t say anything more about Tommy after that. He was afraid to.

He may have liked having the house so quiet, but I didn’t. I was so lonesome without Tommy that I hardly knew what to do with myself. But then he had said he would be back soon. And he[38] had told James to take good care of me, so it was all nonsense about their sending me away and my not being there when Tommy came home again.

I   WAS up in Tommy’s room lying under the bed with one of his shoes in my mouth. It was one of his school shoes. I had dragged it out of the closet one day when Mary left the door open. I didn’t feel so lonesome when I had it in my mouth. He had been gone for several days now.

Well, I was lying there, and sometimes I chewed the top of the shoe and sometimes I just held it, and then I heard James whistling and calling me.

I wondered what he wanted, so I left the shoe under the bed where it was safe and ran down to see.

He was standing in the front hall, and Bijou and Fifine were there, too. “Come along, Muffins,” said James, and as soon as I came near enough[40] for him to reach me he picked me up. He held me under his arm and went over to the front door and opened it.

The automobile was standing out in front of the house, and Bijou and Fifine thought we were going for a ride and they wanted to go too, but James pushed them back with his foot and told them to stay at home. He shut the door behind us and went over to the automobile and got up in front beside William. He put me down on his knees but still he held me, and then we started off.

I was very much excited. I had never been in an automobile before. All the other dogs had. I had often watched from the window and seen them starting out with the mistress, but she never took me.

We rolled along down the street, with William holding the wheel, and there were other automobiles and crowds of people, and I saw some other dogs, too.

[41]The wind blew, and I was so excited I barked and barked until James told me to be quiet, and even then I didn’t stop till he held my mouth shut with his hand.

After a while we turned into a narrower street and stopped in front of a queer-looking shop. It had a big window with a sort of cage in it with an upstairs and a downstairs, and puppies and some long-haired cats in it.

William stopped the automobile in front of the shop. “This is the place,” he said.

Then he got down and took me from James and carried me into the shop. I never heard such a noise as there was in there. It had cages all along one side with dogs and cats in them, and some other animals that I didn’t know, and the dogs were barking and yelping, and big green birds were shrieking, and there were chickens making a noise, too.

A man came forward from the back of the shop, and William said, “This is the dog.”

[42]The man took me and looked at me. I didn’t like him. He scared me and I growled at him, but he didn’t pay any attention. “All right!” he said, and then he opened the door of one of the cages and put me in with a lot of other puppies.

He shut the door of the cage and fastened it, and then he gave William some money. William took it and put it in his pocket, but he kept looking at me in a sorry sort of way, and he came up close to the cage and put his fingers through, and said, “Well—good-bye, Muffins, old chap.” Then he turned away.

All of a sudden I knew he meant to leave me there, and I lifted my nose and howled, and yelped and howled again.

William looked back at me, and then he turned to the man and asked him something.

“Oh, he’ll be all right in a little while,” said the man.

William looked at me once more in the same[43] sort of sorry way, and then he went out and the door closed behind him.

He had gone and left me. But if only I could get out of the cage I might still run after him. I cried and whined and tore at the door with my claws, but I couldn’t get it open.

Suddenly I felt a cold nose against mine and a little tongue licked my cheek. One of the other puppies in the cage was trying to make friends with me.

I stopped tearing at the door and sniffed at him, and I liked his smell. He smelled friendly.

After we had smelled each other he gave a sudden little frisk and tried to get me to play, but I sat down and didn’t pay any more attention to him. I felt too sad and lonely to care anything about playing.

“I guess you don’t like it here, do you?” said the little dog.

“No, I don’t, and I want to go home.”

[44]“I’ve been here a long time; oh, a long, long time,” said the puppy. “It’s not so bad.”

“Did you have a home?” I asked.

“Yes, but I don’t often think about it. I guess maybe some time someone will take me away and I may have another home.”

“But I don’t want to stay here a long time,” I said. It made me whine to think of it.

“Well, maybe you won’t. Some of the dogs only stay here a little while. They just come here and then they go away again.”

“Where do they go?”

“People come and get them. I guess they go to different places.”

I felt too sad and lonely to care anything about playing.

I looked around the cage and saw there were a great many puppies. None of them were alike. Some were bigger than others, but none of them were very big. They were almost all asleep, some lying on top of others, but presently one of them woke and yawned and got up. He didn’t[45] pay any attention to me, but went over and took a drink of water and licked at a plate that looked as if food had been in it. Then he went back and lay down again.

The friendly puppy and I talked together a a long time. He told me his name was Fido. I told him my name was Muffins.

He said the shop was a place where people came when they wanted an animal. Some of the dogs there were very fine dogs. I told him about Fifine and Bijou and Prince Coco, and he said some of the dogs in the cages around us were just as fine as they were, if not finer. We weren’t, though. None of the dogs in our cage were worth much. He said there was a sign on the front of our cage. He had heard people read it and he knew what it said. It said:

“Just plain dogs! Two dollars and a half apiece.”

[46]I asked him if people seemed to like plain dogs, and he said no; they seemed to like the other dogs better.

Well, it got on toward supper time and I grew hungry. Every now and then I whined and yelped. Then the man came along and put some food in our cage, and the other dogs woke up and we all ate from the plate together. One dog kept growling all the while he ate, but nobody paid any attention to him.

It grew dark in the shop and the man went away, and all the animals were still.

Then came the morning and the noise began again, and the man opened the shop and fed us. People came and went. Sometimes they took a dog or a cat or a bird away with them, but no one took a puppy from our cage. They just looked at us and read the sign and went on.

After a while we were turned out in a dark, narrow yard to run about for a while, and then we were put back in our cage.

[47]Every day it was just the same thing. After awhile I began to sleep most of the time the way the others did. They were stupid dogs, all but Fido. He and I used to play together sometimes, and I liked him. I liked him better than any dog I had ever known.

After I had been there a while—not so very long though—a queer-looking man and woman came to the shop. The woman had a bright hat, and the man had black hair, and eyes that made me feel queer when he looked at me.

He didn’t look at me at first, though. He looked at the finer dogs that were in open cages down below us. They were chained there, and there were no tops or fronts to the cages but just backs and sides to keep the dogs from getting at each other.

The man and woman stopped in front of my cage, and the woman said, “How about a poodle?”

They were looking at the dog just below us.

[48]“No, no! Ab-so-lutely no,” said the man. “We already have two. That is enough.”

Then he raised his eyes and looked straight at me. I was sitting at the front of the cage, and when he looked at me I stood up and wagged my tail and then I grinned.

“See! See!” cried the man, and he caught the woman by the arm. “It is he! The one we want. His eyes, so full of intelligence! And that smile, for it is a smile. There is our clown dog. Just the one we want!”

He turned and snapped his fingers, and called to the shopman in a quick, sharp voice.

The man came hurrying toward him.

“This one,” said the stranger. “The little dog with the black around his eye. Take him out that I may see him!”

I grinned at him.

The shopman took me out and gave me to the man, and the man held me up close to his face and looked into my eyes and smiled at me, and I[49] grinned at him. I liked him, though he had a queer look.

“Yes, he is the one,” said the stranger. “We will take him. Have you a basket in which to carry him?”

The shopman had. It was a queer basket. I had never seen one like it before. It was just big enough to hold me, and it had a cover, and a window at one end so I could look out.

The stranger put me in it and fastened the lid.

He let the basket stand on the floor while he paid the shopman, and then he picked it up and started off. I should have liked to say good-bye to Fido, but I had no chance. I looked out of the window and I could see him up in the cage looking after me, but he couldn’t see me very well.

It was a long time before we ever saw each other again, and when we did it was in the queerest way. But that comes later in my story.

SO now I belonged to Mr. Bonelli, and had still another name given me. I was now called Master Grineo. It seemed funny to have belonged to so many people, and to have had so many names. Every time there was a new master there was a new name.

First I had belonged to Mr. O’Grady and then I had been called Smarty. Next I had belonged to Tommy and then I was called Muffins. And now it was Mr. Bonelli and I was Master Grineo.

The first thing my new master taught me was to answer to that name, and to pay attention the moment he said “Master Grineo.”

Mr. Bonelli had a lot of dogs beside me.

Mr. Bonelli had a lot of dogs beside me. Some of them were big, and some were little. I was afraid of them at first, there were so many of them,[51] but they were very friendly dogs,—not proud and snarly like Prince Coco and Fifine.

They were all trained dogs, and could do a great many wonderful tricks. Mr. Bonelli had trained them. After they were trained he took them to a big place called a theatre, and crowds and crowds of people came to see them do their tricks. Showing off his dogs was Mr. Bonelli’s business, just as going to the factory was Mr. O’Grady’s business.

Soon after I came to live with Mr. Bonelli he began to teach me tricks. He began with easy tricks, almost as easy as the ones Mr. O’Grady had taught me, but he went on to harder and harder ones. Some of them were very hard indeed, and some were funny. I never knew there were so many tricks a dog could learn. And the other dogs knew just as many as I did. At least some of them didn’t know as many, but some of them knew more. I had thought I was smart when I[52] learned those three little tricks Mr. O’Grady had taught me, but I knew better now. I heard Mr. Bonelli say he had never had a dog that learned as quickly as I did.

Mr. and Mrs. Bonelli lived in a big house, but they didn’t live in all of it. They lived downstairs and some other people lived upstairs. There was a man upstairs who played a horn. When he played it I felt so sad it made me howl, but Mr. Bonelli always spoke sharply to me when I did that, so after a while I learned I mustn’t.

Back of the house was a yard, and every day we dogs were turned out there to run about awhile and get the fresh air. Trained dogs act just like any other dogs. They sniff about and play together, only never fight. Mr. Bonelli wouldn’t allow any fighting.

The dog I liked best was a little black dog named Sambo. He was just about my size, and we played together a great deal. We were great friends.

[53]Besides Sambo there was a poodle named Punch, and a terrier named Frisco; then there were Ruby—he was a setter—and Snaps, and Diamond, and Sancho and Frolic. I don’t know what kinds of dogs they were. There was a long-legged greyhound, too, who could jump further than any dog I ever saw. His name was Graceful.

There had been another dog, but he had died, and that is the reason Mr. Bonelli had come to the shop and had bought me.

When Mr. Bonelli first began to teach me my tricks he took me off in a quiet room by myself; but when I had once learned them, I had to do them before all the other dogs with Mrs. Bonelli making loud music on a piano.

At first it was harder to do it there before the others, and I made mistakes; but I soon became used to it, and then it wasn’t any harder to pay attention with all the others there than when I was in a room alone with Mr. Bonelli.

EVERY day Mr. Bonelli took all of us down into a big cellar under the house.

There was a raised part at one end that he called a stage, and we had to get up on the stage and go through our tricks every day. If any dog made a mistake he had to go through his tricks all over again.

We all had sort of fancy things to wear when we were on the stage.

The other dogs wore cloth collars that came down over their breasts and a kind of saddle strapped around them. The collars and saddles were red, and had trimming around the edges.

I was dressed differently, because I was the clown dog. I wore a red cap that was cut so that it came round and fastened under my chin, and[55] a big white thing round my neck that they called a ruff. I wore a little coat with my front legs put through the sleeves of it, and little striped trousers with my tail coming through at the back.

At first, when they dressed me that way, I felt so foolish I wanted to get down under a chair or sofa and hide, but afterwards I became used to it, and then I felt quite proud, and liked to be dressed in them.

Mr. Bonelli made me the clown dog because I could grin. The first thing he taught me was to grin whenever he made a certain sign with a little whip he always carried.

When he was teaching me he used to give me a bit of cake or sugar every time I grinned, so I was always glad when he made the sign for me to do it. But afterwards he stopped giving me the cake and sugar, but I had to grin just the same.

As soon as we were on the stage we had to run over to a row of chairs and jump up on them.[56] There was a chair for each dog, and each dog had his own particular chair. We were never allowed to sit on any but our own chairs.

All the dogs except me sat with their backs against the backs of the chairs and their tails hanging down, but when I got up in my chair I turned with my head to the back of it and my tail toward the front. That was what I had been taught to do.

Mr. Bonelli would call to me and tell me to turn around, but I wouldn’t stir. He would call to me louder and louder, as if he was getting angry, but I wouldn’t pay any attention. At last he would come over and lift me up and set me down the right way, but as soon as he went away I would turn around again. We would do this several times, and at last he would say, “All right, Master Grineo, suit yourself then,” and would walk away and leave me.

Then I would turn round and sit the right way and grin at him, and he would seem very much[57] surprised when he looked round and saw me sitting that way.

Later, when we acted in a theatre with people looking on, I found this trick always made the people laugh.

(Mr. Bonelli didn’t call it a trick, though; he called it an “act.”)

Another “act” we did was the Jumping Act.

A long board would be put on the stage with one end resting on something high so that it stuck up in the air. A mattress was always laid on the stage down below the high end. The dogs would run up the board and jump off on the mattress. The mattress was put there so they wouldn’t hurt their legs when they came down.

All the dogs would jump except me, but I would just sit and look on.

Then the mattress would be moved further off, and a chair would be put between it and the board. The dogs would run up the board and jump off the[58] end and out over the chair and light on the mattress as before. Then the mattress would be moved further and two chairs put there. The little dogs would stop jumping then. But most of the larger dogs kept on.

Then two chairs and a table would be put there for them to jump over, and then two chairs and two tables, and so on. After a while the jumps would be so long that only Graceful and Punch could do them. They were both fine jumpers, but Graceful was the best.

Now I would get down from my chair and trot over to Mr. Bonelli and stand up on my hind legs in front of him and bark: “Bow-wow-wow-wow!”

“What, Grineo!” he would say. “You want to try it, too?”

“Bow-wow!”

“But that’s too long a jump for you.”

“Bow-wow-wow!”

“You think you can do it?”

[59]“Bow-wow.”

“Very well! Then go ahead, but I’m afraid you can’t do it, and you may hurt yourself, too.”

Then I would go back to the furthest edge of the stage, and run as hard as I could across the stage and up the board, and just as I got to the edge I would stop short and stand there with all my feet together and not jump at all. Then I would look round at Mr. Bonelli and grin.

“There!” he would say. “I knew you couldn’t do it. Come down now and let Graceful jump.” But I wouldn’t come down.

“Come, come!” he would cry impatiently. “You’re keeping everybody waiting. Come down, I say.”

Still I wouldn’t move, and then Graceful would run up the board and jump right over me and far out over the chairs and tables, and land on the mattress so lightly you scarcely knew when he touched it. Even Punch was not able to make[60] that last long jump, only Graceful. After that last jump I would come down from the board and go back to my chair again.

Then we would play ball. Mr. Bonelli would toss a big bright ball to one after another of the dogs, and each dog would jump up in the air and catch it and bring it back to him.

After they had played for a while I would jump down from my chair and run over in front of him, and stand up on my hind legs and wave my paws.

“So!” he would cry. “You want to play, too, do you?”

“Bow-wow-wow!” I would bark.

“Very well,” he would say; “then catch.”

He would throw the ball to me, and I would catch it as the others had done, but instead of bringing it back to him I would run away with it, and he would chase me all around the stage and pretend to get very angry.

At last he would cry, “Police! Police!”

Graceful would jump right over me.

[61]Then Frolic, who had jumped down from his chair and had run out a little while before, would come in walking on his hind legs and dressed like a policeman. A black stick was strapped to his paw, and he would come hopping over toward me and wave the stick as if he meant to hit me, and I would pretend to be frightened and would drop the ball and run and hide under a chair.

Frolic would go out again, and after he had gone I would come out from under the chair and sit down in front of Mr. Bonelli, and beg again and wave my paws up and down.

Mr. Bonelli would say, “So you want to play again. Sure you won’t run away with the ball this time?”

I would wave my paws harder.

“Very well, we’ll try once more, but remember! If you play any more of your tricks I’ll call the policeman again, and then he’ll take you away and shut you in the lock-up.”

And now would come the most difficult trick I[62] ever had to learn. It was one that none of the other dogs could do. I don’t know whether any other dog ever did it or not. When Mr. Bonelli threw the ball to me this time, I would catch it and throw it back to him. This I would do by jerking my head forward and letting go of the ball at the same time. We would throw it backward and forward three or four times, and then we would stop, for it was hard for me to do this, and after doing it three or four times I was tired.

After that I would rest awhile, and some of the other dogs would do their tricks. A long red carpet would be unrolled across the stage, and Frisco, and Snaps, and Diamond and Sancho would turn somersaults across it from one side of the stage to the other.

After they had done this for a while they would stop and go back to their chairs, and three little round barrels painted with stripes of red, white and blue would be brought in.

[63]This was an act for Sambo and Frolic and me. We would get on top of the barrels and roll them along with our feet from one end of the carpet to the other, always keeping on top of them and never falling off. That was a hard thing to do.

Then Graceful and Ruby would come in dressed like people. Graceful was the lady, with a skirt, and a hat with a feather in it, and Ruby was the gentleman, in a coat and trousers. Graceful’s dress was so long at the back that it trailed on the floor. The music played and they stood up on their hind legs and danced together, and after I had watched them for a while I would jump down and hop after them on my hind legs, and every now and then I would hop on Graceful’s train so he couldn’t dance and at last he would have to stop and run off the stage on all fours.

These are some of the acts we did, but there were a great many more of them.

The last of all was the “Fire Act.” A little[64] house would be brought on the stage, and Mr. Bonelli would pretend to set fire to it. It was fixed so it wouldn’t really burn, but the fire was inside and came out of the windows, so it looked as though it were burning.

Then Graceful and Ruby would come galloping in harnessed to a little fire engine, with Sancho sitting up in front with the reins in his paws. Diamond stood on the back of the fire engine and kept pushing a gong with his paw so it went “Jang! jang! jang! jang! jang!”

There was a hose on the engine, and Judy had to catch it in her teeth and hold it so that when the water was turned on it would squirt on the house and seem to put the fire out.

We would get on top of the barrels and roll them along with our feet.

I was the little dog that ran about barking when the house was burning, and then pushed the other little dog off the engine and rang the bell myself. We none of us liked this act because of the fire. We were afraid of the fire. Still we had to do as[65] we were told, and we had to practise this act over and over and over again because it was a hard one.

There were a great many other tricks besides these, as I said, but these are enough to show you the sort of things we did.

Every day we practised these things over and over until every one of us knew exactly what he was to do and when he was to do it.

Then one morning we didn’t practise. We played out in the yard and around the house, and we didn’t have any lessons.

In the afternoon two men came to the house, and Mr. Bonelli called to us and whistled us into the room where he and the men were.

“Come, my children!” said he. (He often called us his children.) “This afternoon we go to the theatre to practise, and we will see whether you can be as perfect there as here. Then tonight we will act in the show, and everybody will look and laugh and wonder at you.”

[66]I didn’t know what he meant, but he looked so kind and smiling I thought he must mean play. I guess the other dogs did, too, because we all began to bark and jump about him.

I did like Mr. Bonelli, but I didn’t love him the way I loved Tommy. I never could love anyone else the way I had loved Tommy.

Mrs. Bonelli came up from downstairs carrying in her arms the things we wore, and she and Mr. Bonelli dressed us. After that Mr. Bonelli put collars on our necks and fastened straps to them, and he and the men took hold of the straps and led us out of the house and into the wide, sunny street. How big and bright it seemed! I hadn’t been in the street for a long time.

We trotted along, the men leading some of us and Mr. Bonelli leading some, and everybody turned to stare at us and smiled, and a crowd of children followed after us, talking and calling. Some of them wanted to pat us, but Mr. Bonelli wouldn’t let them.

[67]After a while we came to the theatre. I had never been in a theatre before, and I didn’t know what the name meant at first, but I learned afterward. It is a great big place where crowds of people come to see dogs act. There is always a stage in a theatre, and bright lights. There are queer places back of the stage, and men hurry about and drag things round.

I was scared when I first saw it all and I stayed close to Mr. Bonelli’s legs and kept looking up at him, but the other dogs were used to it, they had been there before so many times. They sniffed about, and some of the men stopped and patted them.

Mr. Bonelli led us out on the stage, and then some men came with our chairs and set them in a row.

“Now, my children!” said Mr. Bonelli.

He pointed to the chairs and flicked his little whip, and we ran and got up in our places, only I forgot and sat down with my head turned toward[68] him and my tail toward the back of the chair just the way the other dogs were sitting.

Mr. Bonelli wasn’t pleased with that. He spoke to me quite sharply, and then I remembered and turned round the other way,—the way he had taught me to sit.

The lights shone out along the edge of the stage and there was music somewhere in front of us, but Mr. Bonelli spoke to us just the way he always did. He came and turned me round in my chair, and when I turned back again he said, “All right, Master Grineo; suit yourself!” just as he did when we were at home, and so presently I didn’t feel strange any more.

We went through all our tricks as we did at home, and when we came to the end Mr. Bonelli went about among us, patting us and praising us. “Good! Good dogs! Well done!” he said.

We all felt so pleased we wagged our tails, and some of us jumped about and barked. Then we[69] went home and had our suppers and lay down and rested for a while.

But that wasn’t all. Almost always when we had gone through our tricks once we had finished for the day; but that evening the men came to the house again, and Mr. Bonelli put collars and straps on us,—but he didn’t dress us in our fancy things this time. Mrs. Bonelli put the things in a big case and fastened it, and then we all set out, Mrs. Bonelli too.

We went the same way we had gone in the morning, and after we came to the theatre Mrs. Bonelli took us to a room downstairs, dressed us, and then upstairs again where the stage was.

We didn’t go on the stage right away, though. A man and woman were out on it. They were walking up and down and singing and talking. After a while they came off and went on again and came off, and then a big curtain came down in front so the stage was shut in like a room.

[70]“Now,” said Mr. Bonelli, “get those chairs on.”

Some men ran about and carried our chairs out on the stage. One of them almost fell over me.

Then the big curtain that had come down in front of the stage went up again, and Mr. Bonelli led us out on the stage.

He motioned to us to get up in our chairs and we did, and then I heard him speaking and a big noise as though a lot of people were clapping their hands. It made me feel so queer inside I wanted to turn round and bark and bark.

Then we began acting just as we did at home, and every now and then there would be the same sound of clapping hands. There were crowds and crowds of people out in front of the stage. Sometimes when I did my tricks they laughed and clapped, and then I wagged my tail and grinned. I wanted to do them over again but Mr. Bonelli wouldn’t let me.

Sometimes there was music. It was bigger than[71] when Mrs. Bonelli played the piano. When we rolled the barrels and when we turned somersaults there was music. And when the dogs jumped off the board the big drum went “Bumb!” And there was music when Graceful and Ruby danced.

After a while it was all over, and we had to go off the stage. I didn’t want to go off one bit, but we had to. When the music began again I barked and ran out on the stage again, but a man ran after me and caught hold of me and pulled me back, and everybody laughed.

Then the collars were fastened around our necks, and the men came and took hold of the straps and we went home again.

That was our first night of acting. But there were many more after that. We acted for a long time at that same theatre. Night after night we acted there, and sometimes in the afternoons, too. I got so used to it that I didn’t think any more about it.

ONE day Mr. Bonelli and Mrs. Bonelli took us out along the street to a house where we had never been before. We went upstairs to a big light room with a window at the top, and there was a man there with a big box that stood up high on legs.

Mr. Bonelli got up on a little stage and called us dogs up, and made us sit down around him.

The man stood in front of us and pulled a cloth over the box and over his head. He looked so strange that I began to bark,—not a big bark, but a growling bark with my mouth shut; but Mr. Bonelli told me to keep still.

Something in the box went “click,” and the man took his head out from under the cloth and said, “All right; I’ll take another in a minute.”

[73]Mr. Bonelli wouldn’t let us get down from the stage, and presently the man did the same thing all over again.

Then Mr. Bonelli dressed us in our acting things, and we had to get up on the stage and do different tricks. I had to stand up on a high stool and grin, and I had to stand on my hind legs and grin.

The man put his head under the cloth again, and the box went “click.” He did this over and over. Then at last he said, “There! That’s all. We ought to get some very good photographs out of those.” I don’t know what he meant.

After that Mrs. Bonelli took off our clothes and we all went home again.

We had been going to the theatre every day for a long time now, and I thought we would always keep on going just the same way, and then one time Mr. and Mrs. Bonelli got out their trunks and packed them. I wondered whether they were[74] going away to leave us the way Tommy and his father and mother had.

They did go away; it seems that’s what trunks mean; but they took us with them. We went down to a big place called a station where there were engines that puffed and blew. A big train came in and there was a great noise, and Mr. and Mrs. Bonelli led us up some steps and into a sort of long room they called a car. Presently it began to shake and jolt, and everything outside began sliding past the windows. It was very curious.

When we got out—that was after a long, long time—we were in a strange place where I never had been before. There were streets and houses, but they were all strange, and they smelled strange.

We went to a big house Mr. Bonelli called a hotel, and the trunks came after we did, and everything was taken out of them again.

We stayed there at that hotel for a long time, and almost right away we began going to a theatre[75] to act. It wasn’t the same theatre as the one where we had been before, but it was like it and people came to watch us just as they had at the first theatre.

After that we often rode on the cars. We went to a great many different places, and always there was a theatre, and always we went through just the same tricks in just the same way, and there were lights and music, and the people clapped their hands and laughed.

All the while I remembered Tommy, but I didn’t remember him as often as I used to. I was too busy, and then I was tired all the time, too.

AFTER a while we came back home again. We didn’t begin acting right away, though. We practised one or two new tricks. I learned to turn somersaults and to balance a ball on my nose.

Then one night we went to the theatre again. We went quite early that night, and we went by a different way from the way we had gone before. I don’t know why that was. We used to go through a narrow dark street with ash barrels standing in it, and in through the back door of the theatre; but this time we went along a broad bright street where there were crowds of people, and Mr. Bonelli led us in the big front way.

There were big boards standing in the hall of[77] the theatre, with pictures on them,—and one was a picture of me! Me, in my clown clothes up on a high stool and grinning. The other dogs were sniffing about and didn’t see it, and I wouldn’t have seen it only Mr. Bonelli stooped and picked me up in his arms. “Now look! Look at yourself, my little clown dog,” said he. “Is it not a good likeness?” And he took hold of my head and turned it toward the picture.

I knew it was me because of the clown clothes, and the spots of black.

I began to bark, and Mr. Bonelli turned to one of the men and said, “He knows it,—he knows it, my little Master Grineo. Never before was such a dog as he,” and then he dropped me gently and we went on into the theatre.

I   HAD learned more about theatres now than I had known at first, and I had learned the names of a great many things about it.

The bright lights in front of the stage were called footlights. Then at each side of the stage were places called “boxes,” and they had chairs in them where people could sit, if they wanted to be very near the stage. When they sat in the boxes they were so near it was almost as though they were on the stage with us. Often there were a lot of children there, and I liked that because they laughed so loud and clapped their hands so hard when we did our tricks. But I didn’t pay so very much attention to anyone but Mr. Bonelli when I was on the stage. None of us did. We had to[79] watch him and his little whip all the time if we were to do the right things.

This evening we had come with just our collars on, and we ran downstairs to the room where Mrs. Bonelli was and she dressed us, and we stayed down there with her until it was time for our act. Then Mr. Bonelli called us. We all ran upstairs together and out on the stage, wagging our tails. It was all just the way it had always been before, but somehow I felt different, and all excited. I kept sniffing and sniffing, and I felt as if Tommy was somewhere near.

We jumped up on our chairs, and Mr. Bonelli spoke to the people and they clapped, and then he came over and turned me round, and I kept turning back just the way I always did, until he said, “All right, Master Grineo, suit yourself then!”

At that I turned and faced the people, just as I always did, and grinned, and right then I heard Tommy’s voice. He was there in the box beside[80] the stage, and he called out, and his voice was shrill,—“It is! It is, mamma! It’s Muffins!”

When I heard that I forgot everything. I jumped down and ran over to the box where Tommy was sitting, and jumped up against the side of it and barked and whined and tried to get to him; and he leaned down over the side of the box to get at me and reached down his hand to pat me, and I caught his hand in my mouth, I was so glad to see him.

Then the next thing Mr. Bonelli called to me sharp and quick, and came over toward me and made his whip whistle through the air.

I was scared and ran back with my tail between my legs and jumped up on the chair again.

The people in front began to talk and then the music struck up, and Mr. Bonelli went over and talked to Tommy. I didn’t hear what he said, but presently he turned to the people and held up his hand for the music to stop, and said, “My little[81] clown dog found an old friend he had not seen for a long time. He forgot himself, but now he prays for you to forgive him, and he is ready to act again,” and all the people clapped.

So we went on. Graceful jumped, and we played ball and turned somersaults, and we rolled the barrels and did all the rest of the things, but I didn’t do very well, and once I fell off the barrel, and once I missed the ball. Mr. Bonelli kept smiling, but he came close to me and spoke to me in a low voice, but very sharp, and touched me with his whip, and then I did better.

At last It was all over. Mr. Bonelli bowed and the people clapped, and he bowed and bowed, and then we ran off the stage, and there, waiting for us, were Tommy and his father.

The father talked to Mr. Bonelli, and Tommy was down beside me patting me, and he kept saying, “Can’t I have him back, father? Can’t I?” until his father told him to be quiet.

[82]He talked to Mr. Bonelli for a long time, Tommy’s father did; then he called Tommy to come, and I heard him say to Mr. Bonelli, “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Tommy didn’t want to go, but he had to. He kept looking back at me, and when I saw he was going I wanted to follow him, but Mr. Bonelli wouldn’t let me. He put on my collar and strap, and I had to go home with him and Mrs. Bonelli and the other dogs.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The next day Tommy and his father came to Mr. Bonelli’s house. I was sitting on the sill of the front window looking out, and I saw them coming.

I jumped down and ran out into the hall to meet them.

When they came in I whined and barked and wagged my tail and jumped up on Tommy, and he was just as glad to see me as I was to see him.

We went into a room and Tommy and his father[83] and Mr. Bonelli sat down and talked. I wanted to get up in the chair with Tommy, but Mr. Bonelli wouldn’t let me. He took me up on his knees, and all the while he was talking he kept smoothing me and gently pulling my ears.

At last Tommy and his father stood up, and Mr. Bonelli, too, and I scrambled down and ran over to Tommy, and Tommy caught his father by the arm and cried, “Can’t I take him now? Please!”

But his father shook his head. “You’ve heard what Mr. Bonelli says; he’ll have to train a dog to take his place before he can let him go.”

Then he and Mr. Bonelli shook hands, and Tommy said good-bye, and Tommy and his father went out and shut the door after them.

I wanted to go with them, but Mr. Bonelli held me back. When he let me go I ran to the door and scratched and whined, but I couldn’t get it open, and at last I sat down and howled, but all my howling did not bring them back.

[84]It was not long after this when Mr. Bonelli brought home another dog to the house. He was a little brown dog just about my size. At first I thought he was a strange dog, but when I went up and sniffed at him he smelled like a friend. Then he began to wag his tail, and frisk in front of me, and all of a sudden I knew who he was. He was little Fido from the dog shop.

I was so glad to see him I whined, and he seemed just as glad to see me.

“Ah, my Grineo, so you remember your little friend from the shop,” said Mr. Bonelli. “I had forgotten that you were there together.”

I was very happy that Fido had come there to live and to learn to be a trained dog. I knew he would like it.

Right away Mr. Bonelli began to teach Fido the same tricks that I had been doing. He worked and worked with him. He taught him everything I knew except to grin and to throw the ball. Fido[85] couldn’t learn to do either of those things. He and I worked together, and he used to watch everything I did, and try to do it the same way. I don’t know just how long it took him to learn, but not so very long. He was a smart little dog, but not as smart as me. I heard Mr. Bonelli say to Mrs. Bonelli, “Ah, yes; he is quick, but not quick as is my little clown dog. There is but one Grineo, and I was foolish when I promised to sell him.”

And Mrs. Bonelli said, “But it is much money.”

Then one day, after Fido had learned all the tricks he seemed able to learn, an automobile came to the door, and in it was William sitting in front, and Tommy sat up beside him.

Tommy came in and I ran to meet him. At first he just spoke to me and patted me, but I jumped up at him and barked and yelped until he took me up in his arms, and then I hardly knew what to do, I was so glad.

Then Mr. Bonelli came in, and Tommy put me[86] down and gave Mr. Bonelli an envelope. “Father said to give you this,” he said.

Mr. Bonelli opened the envelope and took out a piece of paper and looked at it, and Mrs. Bonelli looked at it, too, and they both seemed pleased, and Mr. Bonelli said, “That is all right; and please thank your father for me.”

Then they both said good-bye to me, and Mrs. Bonelli took me up and kissed me, and I licked her cheek, but I was so happy I barked and squirmed, and she had to put me down, for now I somehow knew that I was to go with Tommy, and be his little dog again, and I wanted to be down where I could jump on him if I chose, and follow close at his heels.

I was close at his heels when he went out to the automobile again, and when he opened the door I jumped in before he did, I was so afraid I might be left behind.

William seemed glad to see me. He said,[87] “Hello, Muffins! So you’re coming back to us, are you?” And I barked and barked till Tommy told me to be quiet.

Everyone seemed glad to see me at home, too, and even the maid smiled and stooped to pat me, and Bijou came up and put his nose to mine and sniffed at me in a friendly way.

There had been great changes in the house since I was there. Prince Coco was gone, and Fifine was gone. Bijou told me what had become of them. Prince Coco had eaten so much that he got sick, and had been sent away. He always had eaten too much. And Fifine had had five little puppies, so she had been sent away to the gardener out in the country.

So now Bijou and I were the only dogs in the house, and Bijou was very friendly with me all the time. He said he had wanted to be friendly before, and to play and have some fun with me, only he was ashamed to before the other dogs.

[88]I couldn’t play with him so very much even now, though, because when Tommy was home I had to play with him the most.

I didn’t know that I would ever see Mr. Bonelli again, but I did. He came to the house several times. What he came for was to show Tommy how to put me through my tricks.

The first time he came he brought a little whip just like his own for Tommy, and he brought a little barrel striped red, white and blue, and it was my own little barrel that I used to act on. There were one or two tricks I couldn’t do at home because we hadn’t the things, like the jumping-board act and the fire act, but Mr. Bonelli showed Tommy how to put me through almost all the others. Tommy was pleased, and so was I. I grinned and grinned.

Tommy used to make me go through my tricks.

And now I was allowed to go any place in the house that I wanted to, they were all so proud of me. I could even go into the drawing-room and[89] sleep on the chairs if I wished to, and sometimes when there were visitors Tommy used to take me in and make me go through my tricks, and the people laughed and I grinned, and the ladies gave me pieces of cake.

Prince Coco I never saw again. He never came back from the place they had sent him to; but Fifine came back after a while, and when she saw how everybody liked me she liked me, too, and I was very happy. But Tommy was the one I loved—oh, ever so much better than all the rest of them together, for I was his little dog, and I was called Muffins again because we liked that name and he had given it to me. First Smarty with Mr. O’Grady, and then Muffins with Tommy, and then Master Grineo with Mr. Bonelli, and now for always Tommy’s own little Muffins again.