dug it up and carried
it off. Having learned that Nikky now and then carried bones in his
pockets, he sat up and presented it to him. Nikky paying no attention at
first, Toto flung it up in the air, caught it on his nose, balanced it a
second, and dropped it. Then followed a sudden explosion of dog-rage and
a mix-up of two dogs, an old soldier, a young one, a boy, and a wooden
leg. In the end the wooden leg emerged triumphant, Toto clinging to it
under the impression that he had something quite different. The bone was
flung into the lake, and a snarling truce established.

But there had been a casualty. Bobby had suffered a severe nip on the
forearm, and was surveying it with rather dazed eyes.

"Gee, it's bleeding!" he said.

Nikky looked worried, but old Adelbert, who had seen many wounds,
recommended tying it up with garlic, and then forgetting it. "It is the
first quarter of the moon," he said. "No dog's bite is injurious at that
time."

Nikky, who had had a sniff of the bone of contention, was not so easy in
his mind. First quarter of the moon it might be, but the bone was not in
its first quarter. "I could walk home with the boy," he suggested, "and
get something at a chemist's on the way."

"Will it hurt?" demanded Bobby.

"We will ask for something that will not hurt."

So it happened that Bobby and Tucker, the two pirates, returned that day
to their home under the escort of a tall young man who carried a bottle
wrapped in pink paper in his hand, and looked serious. Old Pepy was
at home. She ran about getting basins, and because Nikky had had his
first-aid training, in a very short time everything was shipshape, and
no one the worse.

"Do you suppose it will leave a scar?" Bobby demanded.

"Well, a little one, probably."

"I've got two pretty good ones already," Bobby boasted, "not counting my
vaccination. Gee! I bet mother'll be surprised."

"The Americans," said Pepy, with admiring eyes fixed on their visitor,
"are very peculiar about injuries. They speak always of small animals
that crawl about in wounds and bring poison."

"Germs!" Bobby explained. "But they know about germs here, too. I,
played with a boy one, afternoon at the Scenic Railway--my father is the
manager, you know. If you like, I can give you some tickets. And the boy
said a fig lady he had was covered with germs. We ate it anyhow."

Nikky looked down smilingly. So this was the American lad! Of course. He
could understand Otto's