o the floor with
what he considered a beautiful bang. He would stir up civil war on the
hearth till poker and tongs and dust-brush and bellows all set upon one
another with hideous clang of combat. At last we would toss over to
him, in desperation, an old pair of rubbers, and he would make love to
one and try to swallow the other, playing as many parts as Bottom
longed for, all the way from Pyramus to Lion.

A new stage was provided for him when the storm was over and we
undertook to shovel the drift off the piazza. He would instantly claim
the star role of rival shovel, pawing the powdery heaps with delirious
zest, or he would be the snow itself, ecstatically indignant at being
swept down the steps. He played thrilling tragi-comedies with bones,
too, especially with one monstrous knuckle that might have belonged to
the skeleton of Polyphemus, the prize of one of Sigurd's evening
prowls. It was a bitter cold midnight, but our happy rebel, sporting
with that giant joint, tossing it about in the snow, losing it on
purpose, catching its glimmer by grace of the moon and madly pouncing
on it once more, would not obey the bed-time whistle. He stretched
himself out, a saffron blotch on the white, and hugged his treasure,
crunching away persuasively to convince us that the clock was wrong and
it was still only dinner time. Our ignominious resort, in such a case,
was to fetch from a certain pantry box, the daily object of Sigurd's
supplicating sniffs, a piece of cake, and proceed to eat it, with
vulgar smack of ostentatious relish, in the doorway, under the electric
light. As ever, this stratagem brought our mutineer to terms. Giving
the bone a last affectionate lick, he came bounding into the hall in
time for the crumbs. But his high spirits were far from spent. Though
he consented to play Yellow Caterpillar, curling up in the blanketed
round clothes-basket which, for the winter, displaced his
Thunder-and-Lightning rug, he barked so often through the small hours,
in his dreams or out, that our slumbers were literally curtailed.
Rebuked into silence, he gnawed his leash in two, tipped over his
basket and settled himself for a morning snooze on the forbidden
lounge.

It is obvious that Sigurd was not a model of virtue. We did not want
him so much better than ourselves. "That dog would be improved by a
good licking," said Joy-of-Life's visiting elder brother. But with all
respect for elder brothers--my own had nearly hanged Sigu