"They're good dogs, but quarrelsome--fight all the other dogs round
about. Now William isn't a fighter unless he's unbearably provoked,
then, of course, he fights to kill."

"Oh dear!" sighed Jan, "that's an awful prospect. Think of the trouble
with one's neighbours----"

"But I assure you, it doesn't happen once in a blue moon. I've never
known him fight yet."

"I'll tell you what, Captain Middleton; let me keep him for the present,
till you know where you're going to be stationed, and then, if you find
you can have him, he's there for you to take. I'll do my best for him,
but I want you to feel he's still your dog...."

"It's simply no end good of you, Miss Ross. I'd like you to have him
though ... May I put it this way? If you don't like him, find him a
nuisance or want to get rid of him, you send for me and I'll fetch him
away directly. But if you like him, he's your dog. There--may I leave it
at that?"

"We'll try to make him happy, but I expect he'll miss you dreadfully....
I know nothing about bull-terriers; do they need any special
treatment?"

"Oh dear, no. William's as strong as a young calf. Just a bone
occasionally and any scraps there are. There's tons of his biscuits down
there ... only two meals a day and no snacks between, and as much
exercise as is convenient--though, mind you, they're easy dogs in that
way--they don't need you to be racing about all day like some."

The present fate of William Bloomsbury with the lengthy and exalted
pedigree being settled, Jan asked politely for her tenants, Colonel and
Mrs. Walcote, heard that it had been an excellent and open season, and
enjoyed her guest's real enthusiasm about Wren's End.

After a few minutes of general conversation he got up to go. She saw him
out and rang up the lift, but no lift came. She rang again and again.
Nothing happened. Evidently something had gone wrong, and she saw people
walking upstairs to the flats below. Just as she was explaining the
mishap to her guest, the telephone bell sounded loudly and persistently.

"Oh dear!" she cried. "Would you mind very much stopping a young lady
with two little children, if you meet them at the bottom of the stairs,
and tell her she is on no account to carry up little Fay. It's my
friend, Miss Morton; she's out with them, and she's not at all strong;
tell her to wait for me. I'll come the minute I've answered this
wretched 'phone."

"Don't you worry, Miss Ross, I'll stop 'em and carry up t