and charged
through the flock of childish admirers around him, as if they were a
hostile soldiery and Dick was a very Henry of Navarre, whose white plume
must always be found in the path to glory.

God bless the youngsters! Who of us with the burden of life's toil and
care weighing us down, ever saw a frolicsome group of them, happy in
their freedom from trouble and care, and did not wish he might slip his
shoulders from under the load of his fifty years and be a boy again?
What a pity it is that we must age and die in our wrinkles, leaving
nothing better to gaze upon than a shrunken face, colorless of bloom and
written all over with the scraggy record of our griefs, our errors, and
our pains! Why cannot death charm back the boyish vigor and girlish
grace to our faces, when, with the invisible and fatal gesture, he
sweeps his hand swiftly across them?

The dog? Oh! certainly; but don't hurry me. I'm too old to tell a story
in a straight line and at express speed. I will get to the dog all in
good time, and, in order to feel as I do about the terrible thing that
happened to him, you must know something about his master, for in an odd
sort of way they supplemented each other. Indeed, they seemed to have
entered into a kind of partnership to share each other's moods as they
shared each other's fortune. And it was a strange, and, I may say, a
very touching sight, to see two creatures, of different species, so
intimately attached to each other; and often, as I have looked at the
dog when he was gazing at his master, have I said to myself, "Surely,
something or some one has blundered, and a human soul was put, by
mistake, into that dog's body," for never--no, sir, I will not qualify
it--never have I seen a greater love look from human into human eyes
than I have seen gazing devotedly up into the old man's face from the
eyes of that dog. How did he look? Queer enough, I assure you, for his
cross, while an admirable one to yield wit and affection both, was the
worst possible one for beauty, for his father was a full-blooded
shepherd and his mother a Scotch terrier, without a taint in her blood.

How well I remember the dog and his peculiar looks! I remember him now
as plainly as if he were lying on the rug there this very minute. He had
the size of his father and the bristly coat of his mother. His ears were
like a terrier's, and naturally pricked forward. His color was a dirty
gray--a miserable color; his tail had been cropp