man, anyway."

"No, it wasn't, Seppi; it was human--quite distinctly human. It is not
pleasant to hear you libel the higher animals by attributing to them
dispositions which they are free from, and which are found nowhere
but in the human heart. None of the higher animals is tainted with the
disease called the Moral Sense. Purify your language, Seppi; drop those
lying phrases out of it."

He spoke pretty sternly--for him--and I was sorry I hadn't warned Seppi
to be more particular about the word he used. I knew how he was feeling.
He would not want to offend Satan; he would rather offend all his kin.
There was an uncomfortable silence, but relief soon came, for that poor
dog came along now, with his eye hanging down, and went straight to
Satan, and began to moan and mutter brokenly, and Satan began to answer
in the same way, and it was plain that they were talking together in the
dog language. We all sat down in the grass, in the moonlight, for the
clouds were breaking away now, and Satan took the dog's head in his lap
and put the eye back in its place, and the dog was comfortable, and he
wagged his tail and licked Satan's hand, and looked thankful and said
the same; I knew he was saying it, though I did not understand the
words. Then the two talked together a bit, and Satan said:

"He says his master was drunk."

"Yes, he was," said we.

"And an hour later he fell over the precipice there beyond the Cliff
Pasture."

"We know the place; it is three miles from here."

"And the dog has been often to the village, begging people to go there,
but he was only driven away and not listened to."

We remembered it, but hadn't understood what he wanted.

"He only wanted help for the man who had misused him, and he thought
only of that, and has had no food nor sought any. He has watched by his
master two nights. What do you think of your race? Is heaven reserved
for it, and this dog ruled out, as your teachers tell you? Can your race
add anything to this dog's stock of morals and magnanimities?" He spoke
to the creature, who jumped up, eager and happy, and apparently ready
for orders and impatient to execute them. "Get some men; go with the
dog--he will show you that carrion; and take a priest along to arrange
about insurance, for death is near."

With the last word he vanished, to our sorrow and disappointment. We got
the men and Father Adolf, and we saw the man die. Nobody cared but the
dog; he mourned and grieved, an