me he had not long emerged from the limp stage, when
hind-quarters would continually give way, and there was nothing to be
done but rest on one haunch and try to look wise, being continually
bothered by the flies. After a while he began to grow stronger and more
comely, his ears darkened, and his eyes--put in, as they say, with a
dirty thumb--grew larger, taking on that exceeding brightness that made
passers-by look and look again. He was also allowed further afield when
his turn came. There were walks along the river-banks, in company with
half-a-dozen of the others; and before he was six months old he could run
a good distance with a horse and trap, ere he would come to the step and
look up with a laugh, saying, "Here, take me up; I'm blown!" The old
horse in the shafts knew the ways of the dogs well, and would shorten his
pace, and indeed pull up altogether, if a thoughtless one was likely to
be injured. It was probably from this that Murphy suffered all his life
from a mistaken notion that it was the duty of horses, as well as drivers
of all kinds, to get out of his way, and not he necessarily out of
theirs.

It was a happy life in a land of happiness and freedom, though discipline
was stern, and all had to pass their period of training. Sooner or later
each one was judged upon his merits, as well by his comrades as by the
great, tall Over-Lord, to whom primarily they owed allegiance. And if
such judgment was occasionally fallacious, as it frequently is, the world
over, when based upon such points alone, it worked out fairly when the
time arrived for an estimate to be made of the character that every one
here was entitled to--when the first home had to be left behind, and the
world faced in town or country, up or down the greater river of a common
life.

For such a temperament as Murphy's, a life like this was happiness
itself. He was sociable, and loved company intensely, though preferably
the company of Man. Solitude he abhorred; games were his delight; for
killing things, even were it a rat from one of the thousand holes he met
with when walking by the river, he never cared, and indeed appeared never
quite to understand. "Live and let live" was his motto, while playing
always the game of "catch-who-catch-can."

There was no reason to bring pain into the field at all. Life to him was
a condition full of smiles, or to be made so, though there was snarling
round the corner, as well as folk of difficult temperament