I know, for I made him myself, and he is as good as a man. Please
do not give him too much to eat, and please do not give him back to me,
for I'm not going to take him, if you will keep him. So please do not
try to give him back any more. I have kept his name back, so you can
call him anything and he will answer, but please do not give him back.
He can kill a man as easy as anything, but please do not give him too
much meat. He knows more than a man.

Vixen sympathetically joined her shrill little yap to the bull-terrier's
despairing cry, and I was annoyed, for I knew that a man who cares for
dogs is one thing, but a man who loves one dog is quite another. Dogs
are at the best no more than verminous vagrants, self-scratchers, foul
feeders, and unclean by the law of Moses and Mohammed; but a dog with
whom one lives alone for at least six months in the year; a free thing,
tied to you so strictly by love that without you he will not stir or
exercise; a patient, temperate, humorous, wise soul, who knows your
moods before you know them yourself, is not a dog under any ruling.

I had Vixen, who was all my dog to me; and I felt what my friend must
have felt, at tearing out his heart in this style and leaving it in
my garden. However, the dog understood clearly enough that I was his
master, and did not follow the soldier. As soon as he drew breath I made
much of him, and Vixen, yelling with jealousy, flew at him. Had she been
of his own sex, he might have cheered himself with a fight, but he only
looked worriedly when she nipped his deep iron sides, laid his heavy
head on my knee, and howled anew. I meant to dine at the Club that
night; but as darkness drew in, and the dog snuffed through the empty
house like a child trying to recover from a fit of sobbing, I felt that
I could not leave him to suffer his first evening alone. So we fed at
home, Vixen on one side, and the stranger-dog on the other; she watching
his every mouthful, and saying explicitly what she thought of his table
manners, which were much better than hers.

It was Vixen's custom, till the weather grew hot, to sleep in my bed,
her head on the pillow like a Christian; and when morning came I would
always find that the little thing had braced her feet against the wall
and pushed me to the very edge of the cot. This night she hurried to bed
purposefully, every hair up, one eye on the stranger, who had dropped
on a mat in a helpless, hopeless sort of way, all four