f sitting on the nice, cool porch-kins. SEE the sweetie
toddle! Isn't he adorable, May? ISN'T he adorable, Mr. Watson?"

Mr. Watson put a useless sin upon his soul, since all he needed to say
was a mere "Yes." He fluently avowed himself to have become insane over
the beauty of Flopit.

Flopit, placed upon the ground, looked like something that had dropped
from a Christmas tree, and he automatically made use of fuzzy legs,
somewhat longer than a caterpillar's, to patter after his mistress. He
was neither enterprising nor inquisitive; he kept close to the rim of
her skirt, which was as high as he could see, and he wished to be taken
up and carried again. He was in a half-stupor; it was his desire
to remain in that condition, and his propulsion was almost wholly
subconscious, though surprisingly rapid, considering his dimensions.

"My goo'ness!" exclaimed Genesis, glancing back over his shoulder. "'At
li'l' thing ack like he think he go'n a GIT somewheres!" And then, in
answer to a frantic pull upon the tub, "Look like you mighty strong
t'day," he said. "I cain' go no fastuh!" He glanced back again,
chuckling. "'At li'l' bird do well not mix up nothin' 'ith ole man
Clematis!"

Clematis, it happened, was just coming into view, having been detained
round the corner by his curiosity concerning a set of Louis XVI.
furniture which some house-movers were unpacking upon the sidewalk. A
curl of excelsior, in fact, had attached itself to his nether lip,
and he was pausing to remove it--when his roving eye fell upon Flopit.
Clematis immediately decided to let the excelsior remain where it was,
lest he miss something really important.

He approached with glowing eagerness at a gallop.

Then, having almost reached his goal, he checked himself with surprising
abruptness and walked obliquely beside Flopit, but upon a parallel
course, his manner agitated and his brow furrowed with perplexity.
Flopit was about the size of Clematis's head, and although Clematis was
certain that Flopit was something alive, he could not decide what.

Flopit paid not the slightest attention to Clematis. The self-importance
of dogs, like that of the minds of men, is in directly inverse ratio to
their size; and if the self-importance of Flopit could have been taken
out of him and given to an elephant, that elephant would have been
insufferable.

Flopit continued to pay no attention to Clematis.

All at once, a roguish and irresponsible mood seized upo