he fresh bright grass came, here and there, exhilarating smells
of last year's buried bones. The little upward slit at the back of
Gissing's nostrils felt prickly. He thought that if he could bury it
deep enough in cold beef broth it would be comforting. Several times he
went out to the pantry intending to try the experiment, but every time
Fuji happened to be around. Fuji was a Japanese pug, and rather correct,
so Gissing was ashamed to do what he wanted to. He pretended he had come
out to see that the icebox pan had been emptied properly.

"I must get the plumber to put in a pukka drain-pipe to take the place
of the pan," Gissing said to Fuji; but he knew that he had no intention
of doing so. The ice-box pan was his private test of a good servant. A
cook who forgot to empty it was too careless, he thought, to be a real
success.

But certainly there was some curious elixir in the air. He went for
walks, and as soon as he was out of sight of the houses he threw down
his hat and stick and ran wildly, with great exultation, over the hills
and fields. "I really ought to turn all this energy into some sort of
constructive work," he said to himself. No one else, he mused, seemed to
enjoy life as keenly and eagerly as he did. He wondered, too, about the
other sex. Did they feel these violent impulses to run, to shout, to
leap and caper in the sunlight? But he was a little startled, on one of
his expeditions, to see in the distance the curate rushing hotly through
the underbrush, his clerical vestments dishevelled, his tongue hanging
out with excitement.

"I must go to church more often," said Gissing.

In the golden light and pringling air he felt excitable and high-strung.
His tail curled upward until it ached. Finally he asked Mike Terrier,
who lived next door, what was wrong.

"It's spring," Mike said.

"Oh, yes, of course, jolly old spring!" said Gissing, as though this was
something he had known all along, and had just forgotten for the moment.
But he didn't know. This was his first spring, for he was only ten
months old.

Outwardly he was the brisk, genial figure that the suburb knew and
esteemed. He was something of a mystery among his neighbours of the
Canine Estates, because he did not go daily to business in the city, as
most of them did; nor did he lead a life of brilliant amusement like the
Airedales, the wealthy people whose great house was near by. Mr. Poodle,
the conscientious curate, had called several