man
knocked flat to the earth by the fist of an indignant citizen, and the
dog lying with his skull broken in by a brutal blow from the fellow's
club.

When the old man came to the spot where the dog and the officer lay, he
stopped, and when he saw what had happened, the money he had brought
with which to deliver his dog, fell rattling, unheeded to the ground,
and then he raised his palms toward heaven, as if entreating the
vengeance or the benignity of the skies, and with tears streaming down
his cheeks, he lifted up his voice and wept, saying: "Oh, God, he's
killed my dog!" And then he sank down all in a heap, as if he would die
beside his dying dog, for the dog was not yet dead, but dying.

This his master soon perceived, and heedless of the multitude who
thronged the street from side to side, he lifted the dying dog into his
lap and laid his poor crushed head against his breast and mourned over
him as a mother, deserted by husband and friends, might mourn for an
only babe when, alone in a foreign land, it lay on her bosom dying; and
the multitude, who, by this, had knowledge of the dreadful deed, stood
in silence while he mourned.

"Trusty, Trusty," he said, "do you know me, Trusty?" and his tears fell
fast into the dog's bristly coat. The poor creature, now far gone in
that unconsciousness which deafens the ear to the voice of love itself,
still faintly heard the familiar tones, for he lifted his eyes to his
master's face and nestled closer into his bosom. It was a touching
sight, in truth, and those who stood close enough to see the moving
spectacle, wiped their own eyes, divinely moist with the mist of
sympathy.

It was evident to all, and to the old man himself, that above and around
and closing in upon them was the mystery which men call death--a mystery
as inscrutable as it hovers over the kennel and stable as when it enters
the habitations of men--and that in a few moments the life still within
the body of the poor animal, with all its powers of doing, of thinking,
and of loving, would depart the structure in which it had found so
pleasant an abode and so facile a medium of expression.

For a few moments nothing more was said; the old man continued to sob
and the life of his companion continued to ebb away. The brutal blow
that caused his death had mercifully numbed the power of feeling, so
that whatever the gloomy journey he was about to take might mean to him,
whether the same life he was leaving, or