us
recitative, took the thousand francs out of his breast-pocket and held
them out timidly towards the foreign gentleman, who motioned them aside
and stood silent.

"Did you understand, Victor?" he said, at last, to his little son.

The child hid his face in his cushions.

"Yes, I did understand something: let Lolo keep him; Moufflou was not
happy with me."

But he burst out crying as he said it.

Moufflou had run away from him.

Moufflou had never loved him, for all his sweet cakes and fond caresses
and platefuls of delicate savory meats. Moufflou had run away and found
his own road over two hundred miles and more to go back to some little
hungry children, who never had enough to eat themselves and so,
certainly, could never give enough to eat to the dog. Poor little boy!
He was so rich and so pampered and so powerful, and yet he could never
make Moufflou love him!

Tasso, who understood nothing that was said, laid the ten hundred-franc
notes down on a table near him.

"If you would take them, most illustrious, and give me back what my
mother wrote when she sold Moufflou," he said, timidly, "I would pray
for you night and day, and Lolo would too; and as for the dog, we will
get a puppy and train him for your little _signorino_; they can all do
tricks, more or less, it comes by nature; and as for me, I will go to
the army willingly; it is not right to interfere with fate; my old
grandfather died mad because he would try to be a rich man, by dreaming
about it and pulling destiny by the ears, as if she were a kicking mule;
only, I do pray of you, do not take away Moufflou. And to think he
trotted all those miles and miles, and you carried him by train too, and
he never could have seen the road, and he had no power of speech to
ask--"

Tasso broke down again in his eloquence, and drew the back of his hand
across his wet eyelashes.

The English gentleman was not altogether unmoved.

"Poor faithful dog!" he said, with a sigh. "I am afraid we were very
cruel to him, meaning to be kind. No; we will not claim him, and I do
not think you should go for a soldier; you seem so good a lad, and your
mother must need you. Keep the money, my boy, and in payment you shall
train up the puppy you talk of, and bring him to my little boy. I will
come and see your mother and Lolo to-morrow. All the way from Rome! What
wonderful sagacity! what matchless fidelity!"

You can imagine, without any telling of mine, the joy that rei