ead, and its
half-mad eyes, I thought: 'No trusting you with these bumpkins; you'll
have to come in here for the night!' Well, I got it in, and heaped two or
three of those hairy little red rugs landladies are so fond of, up in a
corner; and got it on to them, and put down my bread and milk. But it
wouldn't eat--its sense of proportion was all gone, fairly destroyed by
terror. It lay there moaning, and every now and then it raised its head
with a 'yap' of sheer fright, dreadful to hear, and bit the air, as if
its enemies were on it again; and this fellow of mine lay in the opposite
corner, with his head on his paw, watching it. I sat up for a long time
with that poor beast, sick enough, and wondering how it had come to be
stoned and kicked and battered into this state; and next day I made it my
business to find out."

Our friend paused, scanned us a little angrily, and then went on: "It had
made its first appearance, it seems, following a bicyclist. There are
men, you know--save the mark--who, when their beasts get ill or too
expensive, jump on their bicycles and take them for a quick run, taking
care never to look behind them. When they get back home they say:
'Hallo! where's Fido?' Fido is nowhere, and there's an end! Well, this
poor puppy gave up just as it got to our village; and, roaming shout in
search of water, attached itself to a farm labourer. The man with
excellent intentions--as he told me himself--tried to take hold of it,
but too abruptly, so that it was startled, and snapped at him. Whereon
he kicked it for a dangerous cur, and it went drifting back toward the
village, and fell in with the boys coming home from school. It thought,
no doubt, that they were going to kick it too, and nipped one of them who
took it by the collar. Thereupon they hullabalooed and stoned it down the
road to where I found them. Then I put in my little bit of torture, and
drove it away, through fear of infection to my own dog. After that it
seems to have fallen in with a man who told me: 'Well, you see, he came
sneakin' round my house, with the children playin', and snapped at them
when they went to stroke him, so that they came running in to their
mother, an' she' called to me in a fine takin' about a mad dog. I ran out
with a shovel and gave 'im one, and drove him out. I'm sorry if he
wasn't mad, he looked it right enough; you can't be too careful with
strange dogs.' Its next acquaintance was an old stone-breaker, a