he
_Ariel_ protected Jerry with taboos. From Sano, the Japanese steward,
and from him alone, did Jerry receive food. Not from any sailor in
whaleboat or launch could he accept, or would he be offered, a bit of
biscuit or an invitation to go ashore for a run. Nor did they offer it.
Nor were they permitted to become intimate, to the extent of romping and
playing with him, nor even of whistling to him along the deck.

By nature a "one-man" dog, all this was very acceptable to Jerry.
Differences of degree there were, of course; but no one more delicately
and definitely knew those differences than did Jerry himself. Thus, it
was permissible for the two officers to greet him with a "Hello," or a
"Good morning," and even to touch a hand in a brief and friendly pat to
his head. With Captain Winters, however, greater familiarity obtained.
Captain Winters could rub his ears, shake hands with his, scratch his
back, and even roughly catch him by the jowls. But Captain Winters
invariably surrendered him up when the one man and the one woman appeared
on deck.

When it came to liberties, delicious, wanton liberties, Jerry alone of
all on board could take them with the man and woman, and, on the other
hand, they were the only two to whom he permitted liberties. Any
indignity that Villa Kennan chose to inflict upon him he was throbbingly
glad to receive, such as doubling his ears inside out till they stuck, at
the same time making him sit upright, with helpless forefeet paddling the
air for equilibrium, while she blew roguishly in his face and nostrils.
As bad was Harley Kennan's trick of catching him gloriously asleep on an
edge of Villa's skirt and of tickling the hair between his toes and
making him kick involuntarily in his sleep, until he kicked himself awake
to hearing of gurgles and snickers of laughter at his expense.

In turn, at night on deck, wriggling her toes at him under a rug to
simulate some strange and crawling creature of an invader, he would dare
to simulate his own befoolment and quite disrupt Villa's bed with his
frantic ferocious attack on the thing that he knew was only her toes. In
gales of laughter, intermingled with half-genuine cries of alarm as
almost his teeth caught her toes, she always concluded by gathering him
into her arms and laughing the last of her laughter away into his
flattened ears of joy and love. Who else, of all on board the _Ariel_,
would have dared such devilishness with the lady-