manner of his kind, he had dived into this shelter without a word to the
dumb beast who had tramped behind his wheels, swallowing the dust his
horses kicked up.

When the strange dog realized this,--I saw the instant the idea entered
his mind, as I caught the sudden toss of the head,--he glanced quickly
about with that uneasy, anxious look that comes into the face of a dog
when he discovers that he is adrift in a strange place without his master.
What other face is so utterly miserable, and what eyes so pleading, the
tears just under the lids, as the lost dog's?

Then it was beautiful to see the St. Bernard. With a sudden twist of the
head he reassured the strange dog,--telling him, as plainly as could be,
not to worry, the gentlemen were only inside, and would be out after
breakfast. There was no mistaking what he said. It was done with a
peculiar curving of the neck, a reassuring wag of the tail, a glance
toward the coffee-room, and a few frolicsome, kittenish jumps, these last
plainly indicating that as for himself the occasion was one of great
hilarity, with absolutely no cause in it for anxiety. Then, if you could
have seen that anxious look fade away from the face of the strange dog,
the responsive, reciprocal wag of the night-club of a tail. If you could
have caught the sudden peace that came into his eyes, and have seen him as
he followed the concierge to the doorway, dropping his ears, and throwing
himself beside him, looking up into his face, his tongue out, panting
after the habit of his race, the white saliva dropping upon his paws.

Then followed a long talk, conducted in side glances, and punctuated with
the quiet laughs of more slappings of tails on the cobbles, as the
concierge listened to the adventures of the stranger, or matched them with
funny experiences of his own.

Here a whistle from the coffee-room window startled them. Even so rude a
being as a man is sometimes mindful of his dog. In an instant both
concierge and stranger were on their feet, the concierge ready for
whatever would turn up, the stranger trying to locate the sound and his
master. Another whistle, and he was off, bounding down the road, looking
wistfully at the windows, and rushing back bewildered. Suddenly it came to
him that the short cut to his master lay through the archway.

Just here there was a change in the manner of the concierge. It was not
gruff, nor savage, nor severe,--it was only firm and decided. With his
tail