ck with a hatchet. He felt that it had done it on
purpose and was now chuckling to itself in fancied security. For quite a
minute he raged silently, and any cuckoo-clock which had strayed within
his reach would have had a bad time of it. Then his attention was
diverted.

So concentrated was Sam on his private vendetta with the clock that no
ordinary happening would have had the power to distract him. What
occurred now was by no means ordinary, and it distracted him like an
electric shock. As he sat on the floor, passing a tender hand over the
egg-shaped bump which had already begun to manifest itself beneath his
hair, something cold and wet touched his face, and paralysed him so
completely both physically and mentally that he did not move a muscle
but just congealed where he sat into a solid block of ice. He felt
vaguely that this was the end. His heart had stopped beating and he
simply could not imagine it ever starting again, and, if your heart
refuses to beat, what hope is there for you?

At this moment something heavy and solid struck him squarely in the
chest, rolling him over. Something gurgled asthmatically in the
darkness. Something began to lick his eyes, ears, and chin in a sort of
ecstasy; and, clutching out, he found his arms full of totally
unexpected bulldog.

"Get out!" whispered Sam tensely, recovering his faculties with a jerk.
"Go away!"

Smith took the opportunity of Sam's lips having opened to lick the roof
of his mouth. Smith's attitude in the matter was that Providence in its
all-seeing wisdom had sent him a human being at a moment when he had
reluctantly been compelled to reconcile himself to a total absence of
such indispensable adjuncts to a good time. He had just trotted
downstairs in rather a disconsolate frame of mind after waiting with no
result in front of Webster's bedroom door, and it was a real treat to
him to meet a man, especially one seated in such a jolly and sociable
manner on the floor. He welcomed Sam like a long-lost friend.

Between Smith and the humans who provided him with dog-biscuits and
occasionally with sweet cakes there had always existed a state of
misunderstanding which no words could remove. The position of the humans
was quite clear; they had elected Smith to his present position on a
straight watch-dog ticket. They expected him to be one of those dogs who
rouse the house and save the spoons. They looked to him to pin burglars
by the leg and hold on till the pol