er, too."

At four months he was no longer a handful. He was a lapful, and then
some. Somewhere near twenty-five pounds, as near as we could judge by
holding him on the bathroom scales for the fraction of a second. And
much too lively for any lap. Being cuddled wasn't his strong point.
Hardly. He'd be all over you in a minute, clawin' you in the face with
his big paws and nippin' your ear or grabbin' a mouthful of hair; all
playful enough, but just as gentle as being tackled by a quarterback on
an end run.

And he was gettin' wise, all right. He knew to the minute when mealtime
came around, and if he wasn't let out on the kitchen porch where his
chow was served he thought nothing of scratchin' the paint off a door or
tryin' to chew the knob. Took only two tries to teach him to stand up on
his hind legs and walk for his meals, as straight as a drum major. Also
he'd shake hands for a bit of candy, and retrieve a rubber ball. But
chiefly he delighted to get a stick of soft wood and go prancin' through
the house with it, rappin' the furniture or your shins as he went, and
end up by chewin' it to bits on the fireplace hearth rug. Or it might be
a smelly old bone that he'd smuggled in from outside. You could guess
that would get Vee registerin' a protest and I'd have to talk to Buddy.

"Hey!" I'd remark, grabbin' him by the collar. "Whaddye think this is, a
soap fact'ry? Leggo that shin-bone."

"Gr-r-r-r!" he'd remark back, real hostile, and roll his eyes menacin'.

At which Vee would snicker and observe: "Now isn't he the dearest thing
to do that, Torchy? Do let him have his booful bone there. I'll spread a
newspaper under it."

Her theory was good, only Buddy didn't care to gnaw his bone on an
evening edition. He liked eatin' it on the Turkish rug better. And
that's where he did eat it. That was about the way his trainin' worked
out in other things. We had some perfectly good ideas about what he
should do; he'd have others, quite different; and we'd compromise. That
is, we'd agree that Buddy was right. Seemed to me about the only thing
to do, unless you had all day or all night to argue with him and show
him where he was wrong. I could keep it up for an hour or two. Then I
either got hoarse or lost my disposition.

You remember there was some talk of keepin' him in the garage at first.
Anyway, it was mentioned. And he was kept there the first night, until
somewhere around 2 A. M. Then I trailed out in a bathrobe and