We set out to meet him at Waterloo Station on a dull day of February--I,
who had owned his impetuous mother, knowing a little what to expect,
while to my companion he would be all original. We stood there waiting
(for the Salisbury train was late), and wondering with a warm,
half-fearful eagerness what sort of new thread Life was going to twine
into our skein. I think our chief dread was that he might have light
eyes--those yellow Chinese eyes of the common, parti-coloured spaniel.
And each new minute of the train's tardiness increased our anxious
compassion: His first journey; his first separation from his mother; this
black two-months' baby! Then the train ran in, and we hastened to look
for him. "Have you a dog for us?"

"A dog! Not in this van. Ask the rearguard."

"Have you a dog for us?"

"That's right. From Salisbury. Here's your wild beast, Sir!"

From behind a wooden crate we saw a long black muzzled nose poking round
at us, and heard a faint hoarse whimpering.

I remember my first thought:

"Isn't his nose too long?"

But to my companion's heart it went at once, because it was swollen from
crying and being pressed against things that he could not see through.
We took him out--soft, wobbly, tearful; set him down on his four, as yet
not quite simultaneous legs, and regarded him. Or, rather, my companion