s name, careful to keep his muddy
feet off the visitor's trousers, grown up, obedient, following to heel
round the garden, the faithful servant of his master? Or will he be the
same old silly ass, no use to anybody, always dirty, always smiling,
always in the way, a clumsy, blundering fool of a dog who knows you
can't help loving him? I wonder....

Between ourselves, I don't think they _can_ alter him now.... Oh, I hope
they can't.

A FAREWELL TOUR

This is positively Chum's last appearance in print--for his own sake no
less than for yours. He is conceited enough as it is, but if once he got
to know that people are always writing about him in books his swagger
would be unbearable. However, I have said good-bye to him now; I have no
longer any rights in him. Yesterday I saw him off to his new home, and
when we meet again it will be on a different footing. "Is that your
dog?" I shall say to his master. "What is he? A Cocker? Jolly little
fellows, aren't they? I had one myself once."

As Chum refused to do the journey across London by himself, I met him at
Liverpool Street. He came up in a crate; the world must have seemed very
small to him on the way. "Hallo, old ass," I said to him through the
bars, and in the little space they gave him he wriggled his body with
delight. "Thank Heaven there's _one_ of 'em alive," he said.

"I think this is my dog," I said to the guard, and I told him my name.

He asked for my card.

"I'm afraid I haven't one with me," I explained. When policemen touch me
on the shoulder and ask me to go quietly; when I drag old gentlemen from
underneath motor-'buses, and they decide to adopt me on the spot; on all
the important occasions when one really wants a card, I never have one
with me.

"Can't give him up without proof of identity," said the guard, and Chum
grinned at the idea of being thought so valuable.

I felt in my pockets for letters. There was only one, but it offered to
lend me L10,000 on my note of hand alone. It was addressed to "Dear
Sir," and though I pointed out to the guard that I was the "Sir," he
still kept tight hold of Chum. Strange that one man should be prepared
to trust me with L10,000, and another should be so chary of confiding to
me a small black spaniel.

"Tell the gentleman who I am," I said imploringly through the bars.
"Show him you know me."

"He's _really_ all right," said Chum, looking at the guard with his
great honest brown eyes. "He's been wi