variably
lookers-on misjudged! What a mistake it was to pass judgment at all--on
anything or anybody!

"... Much else ... much else...?"

The road was less deeply covered here. The dog was heavy: a few yards
more and he was put down. As the journey was resumed, he took to playing
in the darkness, and, in his winning and affectionate way, with the
fingers of his master's hand, as much as to say, "Thank you: we are
together; the rest matters little."

"Him and his dog ... much else ... much else...?" The words kept time
with the footfall.

How dark it was!

And cold--the thermometer marked minus 1 deg..

XII

A summer night, and the heat the heat of the dog-days. The tramcars had
stopped running long ago; the streets were quite deserted.

Not long since, the clock set high in the tower of St. Giles' had chimed
three-quarters; and now it chimed the hour, and wearily struck "Two."
Then other clocks also awoke to their duties, and, not possessing chimes,
repeated the latter information in various keys, from far and near. It
was all very sombre; and the smell of the streets very unlovely.

It was Bill's turn to be up that night; at least, they said it was his
turn. As a matter of fact, he had been up three nights running, and at
least ten in the last eighteen, for this was no ordinary case, and the
credit of the firm was at stake. Not that he held the dignity of being a
member, much less a partner, of the firm; but he had worked for it, he
would often tell, and with no little pride in his voice--"worked for it
thirty-two years, come Lammas; and that wus a very long while."

To Bill, and the few remaining, or still discoverable, like him, the
firm's credit was his; and the firm should never find its confidence
misplaced so long as Bill Withers could walk on his two feet, or aid some
suffering creature. Those were his sentiments. Then, of course, this Bill
had a soft place in his heart for animals generally, though the softest
place of all was unreservedly retained for dogs.

"They wus human; well, a sight better than human, as any one might see
humans at times";--that was the way he put it. "And there warn't a mossel
o' doubt about it, no matter what nobody said."

At that, his mates in the yard thought well to let the matter drop.

"That there Bill has his queer hideas abaht most things; better leave him
to hisself," they remarked, with a twist of the mouth, and passed