ound turned an old lady, and,
"Oh you wicked boy," she cried, "trying to put buttons in the hospital
box! No wonder the dog growled, sensible creature." She began fumbling
with her purse, and I was certain I saw a macaroon in her eye. "There,"
she said, "there's half-a-crown for you, Doggie, dear," and, before I
could stop her, put it in the box. I could have bitten her.

Yesterday an old gentleman stopped to stare at me, and, absent-mindedly
putting his hand in his pocket, brought out something rather like a
penny, but smaller and bright yellow, and dropped it into the box. The
very next moment he gave a violent start, looked wildly about him,
turned the colour of cold veal, and muttering, "Lord bless my soul ...
what have I done?... thought it was only" ... made a clumsy grab at my
collar. Of course I knew what he was after; he wanted my pennies; so I
just ambled off, and very soon outdistanced him. An Airedale, I suppose,
would have held him till the police arrived, but I'm a Collie.

That very same afternoon, wandering about the station, I chanced to
saunter into the ticket-office. The clerk's a man with a very
well-regulated mind. He gives me chocolate. Just then, however, he was
out, but his three-year-old boy-puppy was there sitting on a table all
covered with bits of cardboard and little piles of pennies, ordinary
brown ones, big white ones and a few little yellow ones. Well, in less
time than it takes to cock your ears, that baby was shovelling pennies
through the slit in my box and chuckling with joy. I stood it as long as
I could, and then, in the nick of time, snatched a big white penny out
of his paw and bolted off to the confectioner's. Imagine my astonishment
when the girl actually refused to serve me! "Oh, Scottie," she cried,
"there must be some mistake; I _know_ your mistress wouldn't give you a
two-shilling piece."

* * *

I thought Mabel was going to be ill when she felt the weight of my box.
She dragged me off that very afternoon to the Committee, and when they
discovered I'd collected seven pounds ten in three days the idiotic
things they said about me beat anything in my experience since the time
I killed the mouse in the conservatory. But I will say Mabel did the
right thing by me at the pastry-cook's.

She's going to take me to a Church Bazaar to-morrow. But I doubt if a
bazaar can beat that ticket-office.

* * * * *

HERBERT.

"I haven't introduce