y after him. But as
well talk to the wind, as Joel arrived hot and breathless at the big
door long before him.

Luckily for him, none of the boys were about; and Joel, cramming the dog
well under his jacket, plunged up the stairs, and down the hall to his
room.

"Joe!" roared two or three voices; but he turned a deaf ear, and got in
safely; slammed to the door, and then drew a long breath.

"_Whew!_ Almost caught that time," was all he had the wind to say.
"Well, now, it's good Dave isn't in, 'cause I can tell him slowly, and
get him used to it." All this time he was drawing out his dog from its
place of refuge, and putting it first on the bed, then on the floor, to
study it better.

It certainly was as far removed from being even a good-looking dog as
possible. Having never in its life had the good fortune to hear its
pedigree spoken of, it was simply an ill-favored cur that looked as if
it had exchanged the back yard of a tenement house for the greater
dangers of the open street. Its yellow neck was marked where a cruel
cord had almost worn into the flesh, and every one of its ribs stuck out
as Joel had said, till they insisted on being counted by a strict
observer.

Joel threw his arms around the beast. "Oh dear!" he groaned, "you're
starved to death. What have I got to give you?" He wrinkled his forehead
in great distress. "Oh goody!" He snatched the dog up, and bore him to
the closet, then pulled down a box from the shelf above. "Mamsie's
cake--how prime!" And not stopping to cut a piece, he broke off a goodly
wedge. "Now then, get in with you," and he thrust him deep into one
corner, cramming the cake up to his nose. "Stay there on my side, and
don't get over on Dave's shoes. _Whee!_"

The dog, in seizing the cake, had taken Joel's thumb as well.

"Let go there," cried Joel; "well, you can't swallow my thumb," as the
cake disappeared in one lump; and he gave a sigh for the plums with
which Mamsie always liberally supplied the school cakes, now
disappearing so fast, as much as for the nip he had received.

The dog turned his black, beady eyes sharply for more cake. When he saw
that it wasn't coming, he licked Joel's thumb; and in his cramped
quarters on top of a heap of shoes and various other things not exactly
classified, he tried hard to wag his stump of a tail.

"Whickets! there goes that bell! Now see here, don't you dare to stir
for your life! You've got to stay in this closet till to-morrow--then