he steward.

"Eh? Who'd say he ever seen me in his life?" Daughtry demanded
triumphantly. "It's a trick I never seen played myself, but I've heard
tell about it. The old-time poachers in England used to do it with their
lurcher dogs. If they did get the dog of a strange poacher, no
gamekeeper or constable could identify 'm by the dog--mum was the word."

"Tell you what, he knows things, that Killeny. He knows English. Right
now, in my room, with the door open, an' so as he can find 'm, is shoes,
slippers, cap, towel, hair-brush, an' tobacco pouch. What'll it be? Name
it an' he'll fetch it."

So immediately and variously did the passengers respond that every
article was called for.

"Just one of you choose," the steward advised. "The rest of you pick 'm
out."

"Slipper," said Captain Duncan, selected by acclamation.

"One or both?" Daughtry asked.

"Both."

"Come here, Killeny," Daughtry began, bending toward him but leaping back
from the snap of jaws that clipped together close to his nose.

"My mistake," he apologized. "I ain't told him the other game was over.
Now just listen an, watch. 'n' see if you can catch on to the tip I'm
goin' to give 'm."

No one saw anything, heard anything, yet Michael, with a whine of
eagerness and joy, with laughing mouth and wriggling body, was upon the
steward, licking his hands madly, squirming and twisting in the embrace
of the loved hands he had so recently threatened, making attempts at
short upward leaps as he flashed his tongue upward toward his lord's
face. For hard it was on Michael, a nerve and mental strain of the
severest for him so to control himself as to play-act anger and threat of
hurt to his beloved Steward.

"Takes him a little time to get over a thing like that," Daughtry
explained, as he soothed Michael down.

"Now, Killeny! Go fetch 'm slipper! Wait! Fetch 'm _one_ slipper.
Fetch 'm _two_ slipper."

Michael looked up with pricked ears, and with eyes filled with query as
all his intelligent consciousness suffused them.

"_Two_ slipper! Fetch 'm quick!"

He was off and away in a scurry of speed that seemed to flatten him close
to the deck, and that, as he turned the corner of the deck-house to the
stairs, made his hind feet slip and slide across the smooth planks.

Almost in a trice he was back, both slippers in his mouth, which he
deposited at the steward's feet.

"The more I know dogs the more amazin' marvellous they are to me,"