gling, and I hate
brutality. To me there is something repugnant in merely striking a man
with one's naked fist--faugh! it is sickening! So, to shoot, or stab,
or club John Claverhouse (oh, that name!) did not appeal to me. And not
only was I impelled to do it neatly and artistically, but also in such
manner that not the slightest possible suspicion could be directed
against me.

To this end I bent my intellect, and, after a week of profound
incubation, I hatched the scheme. Then I set to work. I bought a water
spaniel bitch, five months old, and devoted my whole attention to her
training. Had any one spied upon me, they would have remarked that this
training consisted entirely of one thing--RETRIEVING. I taught the dog,
which I called "Bellona," to fetch sticks I threw into the water, and
not only to fetch, but to fetch at once, without mouthing or playing
with them. The point was that she was to stop for nothing, but to
deliver the stick in all haste. I made a practice of running away and
leaving her to chase me, with the stick in her mouth, till she caught
me. She was a bright animal, and took to the game with such eagerness
that I was soon content.

After that, at the first casual opportunity, I presented Bellona to
John Claverhouse. I knew what I was about, for I was aware of a little
weakness of his, and of a little private sinning of which he was
regularly and inveterately guilty.

"No," he said, when I placed the end of the rope in his hand. "No, you
don't mean it." And his mouth opened wide and he grinned all over his
damnable moon-face.

"I--I kind of thought, somehow, you didn't like me," he explained.
"Wasn't it funny for me to make such a mistake?" And at the thought he
held his sides with laughter.

"What is her name?" he managed to ask between paroxysms.

"Bellona," I said.

"He! he!" he tittered. "What a funny name."

I gritted my teeth, for his mirth put them on edge, and snapped out
between them, "She was the wife of Mars, you know."

Then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face, until he
exploded with: "That was my other dog. Well, I guess she's a widow now.
Oh! Ho! ho! E! he! he! Ho!" he whooped after me, and I turned and fled
swiftly over the hill.

The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him, "You go away
Monday, don't you?"

He nodded his head and grinned.

"Then you won't have another chance to get a mess of those trout you
just 'dote' on."

But he did