The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bruce, by Albert Payson Terhune

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Title: Bruce

Author: Albert Payson Terhune

Posting Date: March 27, 2009 [EBook #2391]
Release Date: November, 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRUCE ***

Produced by Dianne Bean. HTML version by Al Haines.

Bruce

by

Albert Payson Terhune

TO MY TEN BEST FRIENDS:

Who are far wiser in their way and far better in every way, than I; and
yet who have not the wisdom to know it

Who do not merely think I am perfect, but who are calmly and
permanently convinced of my perfection;--and this in spite of fifty
disillusions a day

Who are frantically happy at my coming and bitterly woebegone in my
absence

Who never bore me and never are bored by me

Who never talk about themselves and who always listen with rapturous
interest to anything I may say

Who, having no conventional standards, have no respectability; and who,
having no conventional consciences, have no sins

Who teach me finer lessons in loyalty, in patience, in true courtesy,
in unselfishness, in divine forgiveness, in pluck and in abiding good
spirits than do all the books I have ever read and all the other models
I have studied

Who have not deigned to waste time and eyesight in reading a word of
mine and who will not bother to read this verbose tribute to themselves

In short, to the most gloriously satisfactory chums who ever appealed
to human vanity and to human desire for companionship

TO OUR TEN SUNNYBANK COLLIES MY STORY IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED

BRUCE

by

Albert Payson Terhune

CONTENTS

I. The Coming Of Bruce
II. The Pest
III. The War Dog
IV. When Eyes Were No Use
V. The Double Cross
VI. The Werewolf

CHAPTER I. The Coming Of Bruce

She was beautiful. And she had a heart and a soul--which were a curse.
For without such a heart and soul, she might have found the tough
life-battle less bitterly hard to fight.

But the world does queer things--damnable things--to hearts that are so
tenderly all-loving and to souls that are so trustfully and forgivingly
fri