wanted to keep Grip, we'd go off together somewhere and earn our living,
and I guessed the next time burglars got into the house and carried off
all the money and things because we weren't there to stop 'em, they'd be
sorry they 'd treated us so. Then I looked out of the window and winked
hard to keep from crying. Wasn't I a silly?

"'For they were only teasing me, and every one of them wanted to keep
Grip. Well, that's all. No, it isn't quite all either; for one morning
a man came to the house and wanted to see father--horrid man with a red
face and a squint in one eye. I remembered him right away. He was one of
the crowd looking on at the dog-fight down in River Street. He said he'd
lost a dog, a very valuable dog, and he'd heard we'd got him. Father
asked what kind of a dog, and he said yellow, and went on describing our
Grip exactly, till I couldn't hold in another minute for fear father
would let him have the dog. So I got round behind father's chair and
whispered: "Buy him, father! buy him!"

"'Fred called me a great goony, and said if I'd kept still father could
have got the dog for half what he paid for him. Just because Fred is
sixteen he thinks he knows every thing, and he's always lording it over
me. He says I'll never make a business man--I ain't sharp enough. But I
think five dollars is cheap enough for a dog that can tackle a burglar
and scare off tramps and pedlars--don't you?'"




CHAPTER VII.

ONE DAY IN A MODEL CITY.