more permanently, desperately, his. The
first sense of being owned, perhaps (who knows) of owning, had stirred in
him. He would never again be quite the same unconscious creature.

A little way from the end of our journey we got out and dismissed the
cab. He could not too soon know the scents and pavements of this London
where the chief of his life must pass. I can see now his first bumble
down that wide, back-water of a street, how continually and suddenly he
sat down to make sure of his own legs, how continually he lost our heels.
He showed us then in full perfection what was afterwards to be an
inconvenient--if endearing--characteristic: At any call or whistle he
would look in precisely the opposite direction. How many times all
through his life have I not seen him, at my whistle, start violently and
turn his tail to me, then, with nose thrown searchingly from side to
side, begin to canter toward the horizon.

In that first walk, we met, fortunately, but one vehicle, a brewer's
dray; he chose that moment to attend to the more serious affairs of life,
sitting quietly before the horses' feet and requiring to be moved by
hand. From the beginning he had his dignity, and was extremely difficult
to lift, owing to the length of his middle distance.

What strange feelings must have stirred in his little white soul when he
first smelled carpet! But it was all so strange to him that day--I
doubt if he felt more than I did when I first travelled to my private
school, reading "Tales of a Grandfather," and plied with tracts and
sherry by my 'father's man of business.

That night, indeed, for several nights, he slept with me, keeping me too
warm down my back, and waking me now and then with quaint sleepy
whimperings. Indeed, all through his life he flew a good deal in his
sleep, fighting dogs and seeing ghosts, running after rabbits and thrown
sticks; and to the last one never quite knew whether or no to rouse him
when his four black feet began to jerk and quiver. His dreams were like
our dreams, both good and bad; happy sometimes, sometimes tragic to
weeping point.

He ceased to sleep with me the day we discovered that he was a perfect
little colony, whose settlers were of an active species which I have
never seen again. After that he had many beds, for circumstance ordained
that his life should be nomadic, and it is to this I trace that
philosophic indifference to place or property, which marked him out from
most