"I shall be leaving here at eleven in my cart. You come with me.
I can't have sick men running about fall over the place. Report
yourself at eleven, here."

We did not say much when we went indoors, but the officer
muttered and pulled his retriever's ears.

He was a disgraceful, overfed doormat of a dog; and when he
waddled off to my cookhouse to be fed, I had a brilliant idea.

At eleven o'clock that officer's dog was nowhere to be found, and
you never heard such a fuss as his owner made. He called and
shouted and grew angry, and hunted through my garden for half an
hour.

Then I said:

"He's sure to turn up in the morning. Send a man in by rail, and
I'll find the beast and return him."

"Beast?" said the officer. "I value that dog considerably more
than I value any man I know. It's all very fine for you to
talk--your dog's here."

So she was--under my feet--and, had she been missing, food and
wages would have stopped in my house till her return. But some
people grow fond of dogs not worth a cut of the whip. My friend
had to drive away at last with Stanley in the back seat; and then
the dog-boy said to me: