The Adventures of Miss Gregory/A Dog—and Unclean
VI
A DOG—AND UNCLEAN
THE little Jaffa steamer splashed out past the tall statue of Lesseps, which stands at the seaward end of the western pier of Port Said, and lifted her bows to the roll of the free water of the Mediterranean. At the after rail two people watched the roofs and masts slide back into the morning haze. One was the Englishwoman, Miss Gregory, at whose coming on board all hands had stopped to stare, for the sheer quality of her. Fifty years of age, or thereabouts, she had the suave and secure presence of one whose place in the world has never been in doubt; her voice, a little high, with an urgent tone in it, was full of authority. The other was the Rev. Daniel Blake, on his way back to a mission station on the edge of a Syrian desert. He leaned with both elbows on the rail, gazing sombrely.
The land was astern of them when Miss Gregory spoke; the harbour works were stretched upon the water like some elaborate toy, and behind them the feverish town stood glowing under the sun. She was an inveterate maker of acquaintances; it is the modern short cut to adventure. She turned to Mr. Blake pleasantly, and pointed across the widening water to the picture that dwindled as they watched.
"A wonderful thing to see, is n't it?" she suggested.
"Eh?" Mr. Blake came out of his preoccupation with a start, and looked at her sourly. He was a man of her own age, gaunt and grey, with a worn, unhappy face. He had travelled to Port Said from his mission in Syria to greet a brother missionary passing through on his way to China, and the evil town, with its dreary elaboration of vice, had scared and saddened him. As he watched it sink back into the distance, his eyes were dark with a vision of judgment.
"What did you say?" he asked harshly.
"I said it was a wonderful thing to see," repeated Miss Gregory. "That statue, you know—a fine idea, that. One needs to be French to finish a breakwater with a statue."
He was staring at her, while she spoke, with a sort of hostile intentness. She was as strange to his experience as anything he had seen in Port Said. He had lived too long among his heathen to know her type, and he resented her manner of being serenely at home in a wide and active world. A touch of colour rose in his cheeks.
"No doubt there were people who admired Sodom and Gomorrah, too," he retorted suddenly, casting the words in her face almost violently. She lifted her eyebrows in astonishment; for the moment, his meaning was not clear.
"Oh," she said then, and smiled good-humouredly. "Yes, one lady did look back at them, didn't she?"
Mr. Blake made a noise remotely resembling a snarl, and turned on his heel forthwith. He took the only way he knew of giving her what he considered a fit answer: his narrow back was rigid with wrath as he went striding forward.
"Really!" murmured Miss Gregory, still patient, and turned to look after him. She was not at all offended, and her interest in her fellow creatures could outlive any amount of snubbing. The thought uppermost in her mind at the moment was that Mr. Blake would be worth making a note of, for she had in view a book of travels which was to be alive from cover to cover; a book about the living world in which she was so accomplished an explorer. She saw him reach the ladder to the upper deck, cool beneath its awning, and felt in the pocket of her skirt for her notebook.
At the top of the ladder Mr. Blake halted. The long deck was empty, save for a dog that lay across his path and, at the sight of him, lifted a slow head and growled. The missionary gave ground at once; he had lived too long among his debased Mohammedans and Jews to be at ease with dogs; in any case, he could not resist the impression that the taint of uncleanness was upon them. He started to walk round the animal, but it rose to its feet with a low rumble of menace that made him back against the bulkhead.
"Good dog," he said anxiously. "Get down, you brute!"
It was a dog of middle size, tawny and rough in the coat; it showed him eyes of a tender, melancholy brown and a handsome set of teeth. When he made a movement to edge away, it wrinkled its nose to the shape of sheer viciousness; its growl was ferocity made vocal. Mr. Blake poised his left foot for a kick.
"Good old fellow, then," he begged agonisedly. "Good old boy!"
The good old fellow appeared to be clearing for action, when Mr. Blake's desperate eyes, roving for the means of rescue, caught sight of a white jacket.
"Steward!" he called raspingly. "Steward!"
"Sir?"
The shrewd Cockney steward saw how matters stood, and came running with a broom. The dog, still growling, backed into the scupper, and there stood to his arms, as it were, ready to resume the engagement. Mr. Blake put his left foot down with relief, and turned upon the steward.
"What do you mean by having a dangerous brute like this about to annoy passengers?" he demanded. "It's an outrage!"
"Don't belong to us, sir," said the steward. "Seems sort o' lost, don't it?"
"Do you mean to say its owner is not on board?" inquired Mr. Blake.
The dog growled again at the sound of his voice, and the steward stood with his broom ready to repel an attack.
"I saw 'im," explained the steward, "when we was castin' orf from the wharf; but no one don't seem to own 'im. Lost 'is master ashore, I should think, and strayed aboard of us in the night."
"The cur!" said Mr. Blake, with heat. "It meant to bite. It's some wretched mongrel from the town—a pariah dog."
A cool voice at his elbow interrupted him. "Oh, no," it said, with quiet decision; "it's not a mongrel by any means."
It was the serene Englishwoman again; Mr. Blake leaned toward her with a scowl.
"Your dog, madam?" he demanded in his harshest tones.
"No," she answered, gazing at him coolly, while the dog, with his teeth still showing, eyed the three of them watchfully.
"Of course, sir," said the steward suddenly, in a brisk and obliging manner,—"of course, if nobody don't own 'im, we can 'eave 'im overboard, seein' 'e's dangerous."
"Dangerous!" snapped Mr. Blake. "He tried to bite me, I tell you."
"Yes, sir," agreed the steward. "Then over 'e goes."
Miss Gregory interrupted with swift authority. "Nothing of the kind," she said. "The dog's not dangerous; he's unhappy."
"Those curs—" began Mr. Blake, but she cut him short.
"Man," she said, "did you ever see a cur with a coat like that? He's an Irish terrier—a beauty. Poor old fellow, then!"
The dog still had his hairy lips withdrawn from his most impressive teeth. But Miss Gregory had owned and loved dogs from her childhood. She paid attention to neither his shrinking nor his threats, but stooped deliberately and put a slow, expert hand on the rough head. Mr. Blake made a motion to stop her. It was not alone the danger of her being bitten, but the sight of a clean English lady fondling a dog was unpleasant to him. He watched her uncomfortably, while the steward stood by, leaning upon his broom, agreeable to any arrangement that might be concluded. Miss Gregory's hands stroked the restless head, while she talked unceasingly in the low, reassuring tone that dogs know. The beast was tense with suspicion; the world that had gulfed his master from sight might be full of plausible traitors; but she made no mistakes. The feel of her hands, practised in caresses, was balm to him. He surrendered suddenly, letting go his hostile breath in a sigh, and crowded close to her knee. He was ownerless no longer; he knew the dependence on a human being which is the religion of a good dog.
"You see?" said Miss Gregory over her shoulder.
Mr. Blake snorted; he knew too little about dogs to appreciate the art of the victory that he had just witnessed.
"So long as he does not annoy me," he said, "he may remain. You will be responsible for him, Madam?"
"Thank you so much," said Miss Gregory pleasantly, and rose to her feet as he strode off, his arms swinging and his whole ungainly figure eloquent of his disapproval.
The steward loitered. "Fine 'and you've got with a dorg, mum," he remarked, with a finger to his cap brim.
Miss Gregory nodded. "Bring some biscuits to my cabin," she directed. "He's hungry."
The dog was watching her with his soft, devoted eyes. The word biscuit evidently had some meaning for him. He was prepared to understand her completely.
"Come along, old fellow," said Miss Gregory. "Let's see if you can eat something. It's a pleasure to meet a gentleman like you."
The dog followed at her heel, with his short stump of a tail erect, restored to his double capacity of man's champion and slave.
He makes fewest mistakes who registers fewest judgments. In her diary that evening, as, she sat on the edge of her bunk, with the calm dog alert at her feet, Miss Gregory entered her reflections on the subject of Mr. Blake. "A man like a hedgehog," she wrote, "partaking of the characters of both hedge and hog. If it were not for his manners, I should have judged him poor and ageing and disappointed. As it is, I put his appearance down to dyspepsia. To meet him is not to enrich one's experience." As she wrote, Mr. Blake lay in the dark on the other side of the bulkhead, thinking unhappily of the events of the day. He was a man of narrowly defined powers, and they were not of the kind to earn him consideration in the highways of the earth. Here and there, in the dark places of heathendom, his name had honour. Years ago, when the field of his labours had been Morocco, he had lain three months in a pestilent prison, awaiting death by torture. Each day of that period he had preached his valiant gospel to his fellow prisoners; and when, at length, the unexpected release came for him, he had walked forth into the sunlight at the head of a dozen converts. But his vicissitudes, his sufferings and his triumphs, had given him no dignity. His manner resembled his clothes. Both were ill-devised and uncomfortable, and both hid the raw material of martyrdom. Wide-eyed in the gloom of his cabin, he heard Miss Gregory drop an occasional word to the dog; she spoke with an accent of companionship that smote him like a revelation.
"What is it?" he asked himself again and again. "What is it that other people have which I lack? What is it?"
Miss Gregory and he met next morning on the wharf at Jaffa. He was anxious to be agreeable, but did not know how. He would have given much for the trick of pleasant triviality; to nod, to say some insignificant, friendly thing. This was his purpose. The effect fell some degrees short of the intention. Miss Gregory, looking up suddenly, saw his eyes fixed upon her with what she took to be the cold glee of malice. She was having trouble with the officials about the dog, and prepared to snub him at once.
"Er—not bitten anybody, I suppose?" was Mr. Blake's effort at small talk. He had not heard the yell of the steward a few minutes before, when he had trodden on the dog's paw and been dealt with promptly.
"Nobody to speak of," replied Miss Gregory. "Anyhow, it's too late to throw him overboard now."
Mr. Blake's constrained smile faded, and Miss Gregory forgot his existence as another official arrived to bring his black moustache and red fez to bear on the situation. She took a seat on one of her trunks, crossed her ankles, and prepared to insist upon her own way. At her side, the dog sat on his haunches, grave and unperturbed; his melancholy eyes strayed over the wharf in sad detachment. The officer was a stout man, with a pair of small black eyes which twinkled with a totally deceptive effect of merriment. He bent his faculties to an inspection of the animal.
"Yours?" he asked Miss Gregory suddenly.
"Oh, no," replied Miss Gregory. "I don't even know his name. He's lost."
"Lost," repeated the officer thoughtfully, and flashed his eyes at her. "Ah! He shall be shot."
"I'd rather he was n't," said Miss Gregory placidly. She was fairly sure of her man; she had been in the Levant before. The hand that rested in her jacket pocket came forth in the most casual manner in the world, and the Turk had a glimpse of crumpled blue paper in the palm of it. His round, swarthy face took on a look of abstraction; he gazed past her at the road from the wharf.
"If he follows you," he said in dull tones, "how can we shoot? It is not safe."
Miss Gregory permitted herself a little smile; it always happened like that with her, and she was content.
"I see," she said. "Thank you." She rose to her feet and nodded an acknowledgment of his bow. Beside her, the expectant dog stood up and eyed the pair of them intelligently. It was here that Miss Gregory made her mistake. Instead of passing the money with proper discretion into the official palm, she laid it on the trunk, smiled, and walked away. The officer smiled likewise, made her another bow, and reached for his reward. At the same instant the dog, misunderstanding the matter completely, took him reproachfully by the lower leg and held on.
At the fat officer's howl, Miss Gregory started back; she was just in time to see a spirited action-picture dissolve into its ingredients. The wharf became a theatre in a moment, with the dog as the villain of the piece. The fat officer hopped on his unbitten leg and shouted broken phrases in four tongues, and everybody threw things at the dog and looked at the money on the ground.
"Pat," called Miss Gregory. "Pat! Here, boy."
She judged it was useless to offer compensation; the blood of the dog was what the stout officer required. A species of gendarme was already running up with his short sword drawn, and the dog, having caught sight of him, was preparing for further conquests. At her cry, he looked toward her reluctantly. She made frantic gestures of summons and invitation, and began to run, still calling. He hesitated; the row was altogether too promising to lose, but his honour was in his service of her. He followed, bounding.
It had, beyond all things, the breathless flavour of adventure. For a while there was pursuit; but it dwindled quickly, and Miss Gregory, breathless and afflicted with a stitch in her side, dropped to walking pace in an intricacy of narrow uphill streets. The dog danced about her gleefully. Miss Gregory spoke to him remonstratingly.
"This Donnybrook-Fair kind of thing is all very well in its way, my friend," she said. "But in the meantime our luggage is at the customs; and what about a hotel?"
He cocked a soft eye at her with a laughable suggestion of shrewdness, and waited for her next move. Things were simple enough for him. Where she went he would go too, unquestioning and content, ready to support or defend at need. Loyalty was his trade.
"Very well," said Miss Gregory. "You're obliging, even if you are not helpful. Foorward the Light Brigade—we'll see what we can do."
The Orient Hotel in those days looked out upon the street through a tall arched door, and within it the courtyard was roofed over to be a spacious lounging-place for the hotel's frequenters. Miss Gregory summoned her most formal demeanour as she turned in, with the dog soberly at heel.From the palm-screened office at the farther end of the courtyard, Aristide saw her arrival, and came forward to meet her—the most pliant, most accomplished of maîtres d hôtel. Aristide had practised his hospitable profession in most of the great ports of the Mediterranean; he was a specialist in comfortable perches for birds of passage. He bowed before her, smiling to the full stretch of his piratical black moustache while she set forth her needs—a good room, a rug for the dog, porters to go forthwith for her luggage, and café au lait.
"Direckly, Madame," he assured her, with his air of having received distinguished favours. "Madame will take ze café first? Madame will have it here?"
He drew out a chair for her at a small table, and Miss Gregory turned toward it, and saw, seated at a little table close at hand, her acquaintance of the steamer, the Rev. Daniel Blake. At sight of her he started. He had been a witness of the tragedy by the water-side, when law and order had been made the prey of a dog; and he found it astonishing that she should turn up thus, trim and unperturbed, with the spoils of victory walking visibly behind her. He gave her his hard, inexpressive stare, which looked so hostile and was yet nothing but an evidence of slow wits, and as she returned it he caught at his manners and made her a bow. It was rather funny to watch, and Miss Gregory was interested. She failed to notice that the dog, whose memory of Mr. Blake was not less accurate than hers, was interested too.
Mr. Blake's conscience had smitten him at the moment of her flight from the wharf. No honest man lacks the seeds of chivalry, however he may lack the art of it. Too late he began to perceive that he had lost an opportunity. He might have tripped up the man with the sword, and so made a diversion in her favour. He chafed at the suspicion that he was doomed forever to stand in the background of these vivacious transactions, to be a mere spectator and critic. He hesitated a moment, and rose awkwardly to go across to her. His mind floundered painfully, seeking for a friendly thing to say.
"Well," said Miss Gregory, before he had found it, drawing off her gloves in a leisurely fashion, "you see, we're not overboard yet, either of us."
"No," said Mr. Blake uneasily. "No. Not yet."
He had meant merely to agree with her; it was none of his doing that the words sounded like a veiled threat. He came closer.
"Do you mind if I sit at your table?" he asked, with sudden humility, and laid his hand on the edge of it. It was the sign for which the dog was waiting, the token he had set himself to recognise. With the smooth celerity of a piece of machinery, he opened a flank attack at once. The table was between Mr. Blake and Miss Gregory, so that she could not see what was happening to that gentleman's right calf, and for a moment she thought that sudden madness had seized him. He made a strange noise between a scream and a grunt, and leaped backward.
"What on earth—" began Miss Gregory, half rising, and then she saw. "Oh, Pat, you beast! Come here at once, sir."
The deluded Pat had a strip of black cloth in his teeth; he flaunted it vaingloriously, the while he moved exultantly before Mr. Blake with a motion like a mechanical rocking-horse and feinted for another opening.
"Call him off!" cried Mr. Blake frantically. "I'm badly bitten. Call him off! He's coming again!"
From all about the courtyard came noises of disorder; the carefully stage-managed peace of the Orient Hotel was shattered as though by a bomb. A stout Greek lady, against whom Pat had brushed in his swift campaign, uttered a quick sentence in her native tongue, and climbed to the security of her table. For a moment she stood securely, with her skirts drawn tight about her, like an ample statue on an insufficient pedestal. Then came disaster, and she tilted abysmally in a vast ruin. Her full-throated shriek as she collapsed put the cap on the matter; there was shouting and the drum of feet, and Aristide came through the throng as a scythe goes through rank grass.
"Oh, scandaal!" he gritted between clenched teeth, and his dexterous kick took Pat a little abaft the beam and hoisted him a dozen feet in the direction of the archway and the inhospitality of the street. He landed and spun round teeth bared for war, but a flower-pot thrown by a waiter exploded between his paws, and he was rushed backwards and out before he could recover. It was all in Aristide's best masterly manner—his demonstration of the great hidden truth that an innkeeper may be a paladin. He stood and watched the stumpy tail vanish, and came slowly back again, fingering his white tie into order.
"A doctor, sir?" he asked of Mr. Blake, who was examining his wounds in the midst of a group of sympathisers.
"No," said Mr. Blake shortly. His injuries were, after all, not severe. There was just blood enough to look ugly when seen through the torn rent in the black trousers; but Mr. Blake, at his worst and crudest, was never a man to make a profit of an attitude.
"I'm all right," he said harshly, and rose to his feet.
"Glad it's no worse," said Miss Gregory at his side, and he turned to meet her unembarrassed eyes.
"Er—the—er—dog's gone, eh?" he inquired heavily.
She smiled. "Yes; he's overboard, as far as you're concerned," she said. It seemed she could not forget that word; he reddened uncomfortably.
"So it only remains to pay for the damage and go after him," she added tranquilly. His woebegone look struck her suddenly. "I really am very sorry, Mr. Blake," she concluded. "Anything I can do"
Her glance at the torn garments was significant, and her purse was in her hand. He wondered why the proper, easy thing to say was so hard to find.
"Thank you, no," he answered, and Miss Gregory turned away to the expectant Aristide. That truly great man was as placid as she; he never allowed passion to complicate finance. The settlement was so satisfactory that he even felt a certain compunction for kicking Pat.
Miss Gregory passed the day in looking for Pat. Jaffa was not a city of imposing proportions, but one could not imagine a place better adapted for losing a dog. The little streets were linked in all directions by a mesh of alleys and byways. When he was driven from the hotel, he had the choice of a score of ways to go. And it was a little alarming to find how quickly his fame had spread. At a little café where she lunched and made inquiries ("Has anyone seen a red dog?" she asked), they knew all about the scene on the quay, and were politely but obviously a little nervous of Miss Gregory. No, they explained; they had not seen any dog of that remarkable hue, and their manner of saying it suggested a hope that they never would. In the afternoon she took occasion to visit two other hotels, to secure accommodation for the night, and found that the tale of Pat's deeds at the Orient had got there first. At both there were smiling, deferential managers on the model of Aristide. They had excellent rooms at her disposal, charming, exceptional rooms. "But, Madame—excoose. Ve do not receive dogs, hein? Eet is ze rule." To each of them Miss Gregory showed first a grim countenance and then a broad back. She saw a good deal of Jaffa that day.
The moon was high over the white and crowded town ere her quest ended, at the corner of a little open garden where there were seats around a fountain. As she neared it, there came into view a dog of the town, a lean, ragged gutter-hound, comprising in his single unshapely person half-a-dozen uncleanly breeds. He was moving at top speed, too urgent to be elsewhere even to snarl as he went. He crossed her path like a hairy comet, and vanished in the nearest shadows. And after him, with all the joy of the chase eloquent in his gait, came another dog. Miss Gregory stopped short.
"Pat!" she cried. "Pat, you brute."
Pat slid to a standstill, and welcomed her with a wild bark. He spun about her crazily. He seemed eager to tell her that hunting was good, but meeting a friend was better. He spun about her crazily.
"Oh, Pat," said Miss Gregory. "A well-bred dog like you, too! You'll come to a bad end, my friend. But I'm glad to see you, all the same."
"Wuff!" observed Pat happily. He liked being talked to. Life, for him, was full of fights and other fine things; but service was best—to adore, to obey, to sacrifice. He went with her to one of the seats.
Miss Gregory sat down with a sigh of relief, for she was a tired woman.
"Thanks to you, my exuberant friend, there's no roof for us to-night," she said to the waiting dog; "so we must see it out here."
She leaned back and yawned, in no wise disturbed or unhappy. For Miss Gregory a bed was a mere piece of furniture; for most people it is a symbol. The night air was not yet bitter with chill, and she felt she could sleep. Pat, agreeable to her mood, fidgeted uncertainly for a minute or two, and then coiled down upon her foot. The big white moon stood over them benignly; across the hushed streets the sea made its slumberous murmur. Pat put a paw across his nose lazily, and Miss Gregory slept.
Twice or thrice during the night the dog raised his wise head at the approach of footsteps. There came a patrolling policeman, belted and armed; there came also men who prowled cautiously. Miss Gregory did not hear them. One who came close heard the low rumble of the dog's growl, hesitated, and slunk away. Pat was on duty, the duty he understood. Let Miss Gregory be pilot in the strange complexity of man's world, and he would trust her utterly; but when that curious tangle subsided and things became plain and primitive, he would take command and not fail her.
Day was pale overhead when he woke her by rising from her foot. She had slept the night through, and returned to wakefulness to see Pat rampant gardant, and making preparations to give Mr. Blake further cause for complaint. The missionary had halted about twenty paces away, with one of the long scats between him and the dog. In one hand he carried a loop of bright steel chain; Miss Gregory gave it a stare of unworthy suspicion.
"Good morning," she said. "Is that chain intended for Pat here?"
"Yes," he said. "Will you hold him, please? I want to speak to you."
Miss Gregory laid her hand on Pat's collar. "Down, boy," she ordered. "I warn you that if you try to snatch him I 'll let him go," she called.
Mr. Blake came across to her with his quick, shambling stride. He was extraordinarily gaunt and ungainly in that pitiless pale light; his shabbiness, his effect of a man whose poverty expresses itself in his equipment, was pathetic. He stood over her awkwardly.
"Been out all night?" he asked abruptly.
Miss Gregory was leaning back with her knees crossed, at her ease, self-possessed, cruelly scrutinizing him.
"Yes," she answered.
"I thought so," he said.
"Indeed." Miss Gregory saw that the man was painfully embarrassed, and compunction stirred in her. "Why?" she demanded.
"I inquired at the hotels," he said.
"I see," said Miss Gregory. "So you inquired at the hotels, did you? Sit down, Mr. Blake. Now, why did you inquire?"
The gaunt, grey man had his eyes fixed on the ground. It was as though he were confessing some crime. The starch was out of him.
"You 're fond of dogs?" he asked inconsequently.
"Well, yes," said Miss Gregory, surprised.
"I'm not," he went on; "I don't like them—I'm afraid of them. So—I wondered. The dog seemed to have a claim on you. When he saw you, he knew you were his friend, just as he knew I was not. And you were. I don't understand, even yet—quite. Is it only because you are kind to dogs?"
He stopped for an answer. still staring at the trodden earth before him. Miss Gregory bent her mind to the matter.
"No," she answered thoughtfully. "It was n't only that, since you ask. You see, the dog and I have much the same views of life and behaviour."
"Eh?" He glanced round, fearful that she spoke in jest; her face reassured him.
"I'm afraid it sounds rather mad," said, Miss Gregory; "but think it out. Both of us stand by those who need our help; we 're not down on the weak and lonely; we 're decently clean in our manners; and we can both take care of ourselves. Really, I'm not joking. A decent human being and a decent dog have a lot in common."
Mr. Blake nodded his head at each point she mentioned. He did not answer her at once.
"I think," he said at last, "that, if I were to be burned at the stake for the glory of my Master, I could do my part with credit. That is what I think, and once I was very near it. But if His cause depended on my being able to say a light, pleasant thing to a chance-met stranger—well, thank God, it does n't. But"
"What?" asked Miss Gregory gently.
Mr. Blake sat up. He turned his grizzled face to her. It was seamed with the suns and storms of many deserts and darkened with a multitude of griefs. He was of her own age, but old already, void of humour and incapable of power. But for the moment he was exalted.
"Your ill-conditioned brute has bitten me once and frightened me twice," he said, with a sudden vivacity. "While you keep him you 'll never get into a hotel. To-day I leave on my way to my Mission; give the beast to me."
Miss Gregory hesitated. "Really?" she asked. "You want him?"
He held up the chain for her to see. "I brought it in the hope that you would give him," he said. "You call him Pat, eh? St. Patrick was a missionary—and he could bite, too. Pat, come here."
Pat held back. He was not an effusive dog, but he fell to abject licking of Miss Gregory's hand.
"Pat," said Miss Gregory, "be good."
"Come, Pat," said Mr. Blake. "We're both awkward in company; we ought to get on."
Miss Gregory clipped the chain to his collar, and the tall missionary rose. His awkwardness descended on him again.
"Got to be going," he said, in his harshest tones. "Er—thank you for the dog. And—er—er"
Miss Gregory took his hand heartily.
"My dear man," she said, "I'm an old fool myself. Go, now, because I'm half afraid I'm going to cry. And God bless you, both of you."