Page:Sheila and Others (1920).djvu/148

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SHEILA AND OTHERS

sion, the mistress of Keddo's uninvited guest was encountered taking her own constitutional in full plumage but without any small devoted canine attendant. Complications ensued. The lady was horrified. The family, that is to say our family, tried not to look guilty. The shrinking culprit deprecatingly offered affectionate overtures without success. Keddo alone remained unmoved by this dismal encounter, frisking joyously about, trying to keep everybody's spirits up because his own were unaffected.

The little St. George Street aristocrat appeared no more on our premises, nor ever barked again under the library window for Keddo of a Summer evening, after this unhappy contretemps, save once some weeks later when he turned up in a delirium of joy with a broken strap dangling from his silver collar. But even the pathos of this so obvious situation failed to move the stony heart of Keddo, who received him with all the old show of bored in difference.

It is not to be denied that Keddo occupied a place in the family esteem which neither his size nor his pedigree warranted. It is a testimony to the power of character. Keddo's