o me she was not
looking quite comfortable. I was not feeling quite comfortable myself.
The atmosphere seemed a trifle oppressive: perhaps we had done wrong in
having a fire after all. Lady Wickham appeared to notice it too. She sat
very upright, fanning herself mechanically, and seemed disinclined to
lean back in her chair.

After the song was finished I said:

"I am afraid you are not quite comfortable, Lady Wickham. Let me get you
a larger cushion."

"Thank you," said Lady Wickham, "the cushion I have is delightfully
comfortable; but I think there is something hard behind it."

Apologetically I plucked away the cushion. Lady Wickham was right; there
was something behind it.

It was Excalibur's bone!

IV

A WALK along the village street was always a great event for
Excalibur. Still, it must have contained many humiliating moments for
one of his sensitive disposition; for he was always pathetically anxious
to make friends with other dogs, but was rarely successful. Little dogs
merely bit his legs and big dogs cut him dead.

I think this was why he usually commenced his morning round by calling
on a rabbit. The rabbit lived in a hutch in a yard at the end of a
passage between two cottages, the first turning on the right after you
entered the village, and Excalibur always dived down this at the
earliest opportunity. It was no use for Eileen, who usually took him
out on these occasions, to endeavor to hold him back. Either Excalibur
called on the rabbit by himself or Eileen went with him; there was no
other alternative.

Arrived at the hutch, Excalibur wagged his tail and contemplated the
rabbit with his usual air of vacuous benevolence. The rabbit made not
the faintest response, but continued to munch green feed, twitching its
nose in a superior manner. Finally, when it could endure Excalibur's
admiring inspection and hard breathing no longer, it turned its back and
retired into its bedroom.

Excalibur's next call was usually at the butcher's shop, where he was
presented with a specially selected and quite unsalable fragment of
meat. He then crossed the road to the baker's, where he purchased a
halfpenny bun, for which his escort was expected to pay. After that he
walked from shop to shop, wherever he was taken, with great docility and
enjoyment; for he was a gregarious animal and had a friend behind or
underneath almost every counter in the village. Men, women, babies,
kittens, even ducks--they wer