ed goldfish,' said
Mrs. Godfrey, rising. 'That's all settled. Car, please. We're going to
Brighton to lunch together.'

They ran before I could get into my stride, so I told the dog Harvey
what I thought of them and his mistress. He never shifted his position,
but stared at me, an intense, lopsided stare, eye after eye. Malachi
came along when he had seen his sister off, and from a distance
counselled me to drown the brute and consort with gentlemen again. But
the dog Harvey never even cocked his cockable ear.

And so it continued as long as he was with me. Where I sat, he sat and
stared; where I walked, he walked beside, head stiffly slewed over one
shoulder in single-barrelled contemplation of me. He never gave tongue,
never closed in for a caress, seldom let me stir a step alone. And, to
my amazement, Malachi, who suffered no stranger to live within our
gates, saw this gaunt, growing, green-eyed devil wipe him out of my
service and company without a whimper. Indeed, one would have said the
situation interested him, for he would meet us returning from grim walks
together, and look alternately at Harvey and at me with the same
quivering interest that he showed at the mouth of a rat-hole. Outside
these inspections, Malachi withdrew himself as only a dog or a
woman can.

Miss Sichliffe came over after a few days (luckily I was out) with some
elaborate story of paying calls in the neighbourhood. She sent me a note
of thanks next day. I was reading it when Harvey and Malachi entered and
disposed themselves as usual, Harvey close up to stare at me, Malachi
half under the sofa, watching us both. Out of curiosity I returned
Harvey's stare, then pulled his lopsided head on to my knee, and took
his eye for several minutes. Now, in Malachi's eye I can see at any hour
all that there is of the normal decent dog, flecked here and there with
that strained half-soul which man's love and association have added to
his nature. But with Harvey the eye was perplexed, as a tortured man's.
Only by looking far into its deeps could one make out the spirit of the
proper animal, beclouded and cowering beneath some unfair burden.

Leggatt, my chauffeur, came in for orders.

'How d'you think Harvey's coming on?' I said, as I rubbed the brute's
gulping neck. The vet had warned me of the possibilities of spinal
trouble following distemper.

'He ain't _my_ fancy,' was the reply. 'But _I_ don't question his
comings and goings so long as I 'ave