that he was still a very young
pup, with soft, flabby muscles.

"Now, I'm goin' to begin yer edication, pup; think o' that."

Whether Crusoe thought of that or not we cannot say, but he looked up in
his master's face as he spoke, cocked his ears very high, and turned his
head slowly to one side, until it could not turn any further in that
direction; then he turned it as much to the other side, whereat his
master burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and Crusoe
immediately began barking vociferously.

"Come, come," said Dick, suddenly checking his mirth, "we mustn't play,
pup, we must work."

Drawing a leathern mitten from his belt, the youth held it to Crusoe's
nose, and then threw it a yard away, at the same time exclaiming in a
loud, distinct tone, "_Fetch it_."

Crusoe entered at once into the spirit of this part of his training; he
dashed gleefully at the mitten, and proceeded to worry it with intense
gratification. As for "_Fetch it_," he neither understood the words nor
cared a straw about them.

Dick Varley rose immediately, and rescuing the mitten, resumed his seat
on a rock.

"Come here, Crusoe," he repeated.

"Oh! certainly, by all means," said Crusoe--no! he didn't exactly _say_
it, but really he _looked_ these words so evidently, that we think it
right to let them stand as they are written. If he could have finished
the sentence he would certainly have said, "Go on with that game over
again, old boy; it's quite to my taste--the jolliest thing in life, I
assure you!" At least, if we may not positively assert that he would
have said that, no one else can absolutely affirm that he wouldn't.

Well, Dick Varley did do it over again, and Crusoe worried the mitten
over again--utterly regardless of "_Fetch it_."

Then they did it again, and again, and again, but without the slightest
apparent advancement in the path of canine knowledge,--and then they
went home.

During all this trying operation Dick Varley never once betrayed the
slightest feeling of irritability or impatience. He did not expect
success at first; he was not, therefore, disappointed at failure.

Next day he had him out again--and the next--and the next--and the next
again, with the like unfavourable result. In short, it seemed at last
as if Crusoe's mind had been deeply imbued with the idea that he had
been born expressly for the purpose of worrying that mitten, and he
meant to fulfil his destiny to the letter.

Young