ome
better informed.

"What happened! Well, now come in the dog and the man. The dog was given
me by a friend who was dog-mad, and who said to me the puppy would
develop into a marvel of his kind, so long a pedigree he had. I
relegated the puppy to the servants and the basement, and forgot him.
The man came in the form of an accidental new friend, an old friend of
my wife, as subsequently developed. I invited him to my house, and he
came often. I liked to have him there. I wanted to go to Congress--you
know all about that--and wasn't often at home in the evening. He made
the evenings less lonely for my wife, and I was glad of it. I told her I
would make amends for my absence when the campaign was over. She was all
patience and sweetness.

"Meanwhile that brute of a puppy in the basement had been developing. He
had grown into a great, rangy, long-toothed monster, with a leer on his
dull face, and the servants were afraid of him. I got interested and
made a pet of the uncouth animal. I studied the Ulm character. I learned
queer things about him. Despite his size and strength, he was frequently
overcome by other dogs when he wandered into the street. He was tame
until the shadows began to gather and the sun went down. Then a change
came upon him. He ranged about the basement, and none but I dared
venture down there. He was, in short, a cur by day, at night a demon. I
supposed the early dogs of this breed had been trained to night
slaughter and savageness alone, and that it was a case of atavism, a
recurrence of hereditary instinct. It interested me vastly, and I
resolved to make him the most perfect of watchdogs. I trained him to lie
couchant, and to spring upon and tear a stuffed figure I would bring
into the basement. I noticed he always sprang at the throat. 'Hard
lines,' thought I, 'for the burglar who may venture here!'

"It was a little later than this nonsense with the dog, which was a
piece of boyishness, a degree of relaxation to the strain of my fight
with down-town conditions, that there came in what makes a man think the
affairs of this world are not adjusted rightly, and makes recurrent the
impulse which was first unfortunate for Abel--no doubt worse for Cain.
There is no need for going into details of the story, how I learned, or
when. My knowledge was all-sufficient and absolute. My wife and my
friend were sinning, riotously and fully, but discreetly--sinning
against all laws of right and honor, and again