iciently daring.

Of David's dripping little form in the bath, and how when I essayed to
catch him he had slipped from my arms like a trout.

Of how I had stood by the open door listening to his sweet breathing,
had stood so long that I forgot his name and called him Timothy.

XX. David and Porthos Compared

But Mary spoilt it all, when I sent David back to her in the morning, by
inquiring too curiously into his person and discovering that I had put
his combinations on him with the buttons to the front. For this I
wrote her the following insulting letter. When Mary does anything
that specially annoys me I send her an insulting letter. I once had a
photograph taken of David being hanged on a tree. I sent her that. You
can't think of all the subtle ways of grieving her I have. No woman with
the spirit of a crow would stand it.

"Dear Madam [I wrote], It has come to my knowledge that when you walk
in the Gardens with the boy David you listen avidly for encomiums of him
and of your fanciful dressing of him by passers-by, storing them in your
heart the while you make vain pretence to regard them not: wherefore
lest you be swollen by these very small things I, who now know David
both by day and by night, am minded to compare him and Porthos the
one with the other, both in this matter and in other matters of graver
account. And touching this matter of outward show, they are both very
lordly, and neither of them likes it to be referred to, but they endure
in different ways. For David says 'Oh, bother!' and even at times hits
out, but Porthos droops his tail and lets them have their say. Yet is he
extolled as beautiful and a darling ten times for the once that David is
extolled.

"The manners of Porthos are therefore prettier than the manners of
David, who when he has sent me to hide from him behind a tree sometimes
comes not in search, and on emerging tamely from my concealment I find
him playing other games entirely forgetful of my existence. Whereas
Porthos always comes in search. Also if David wearies of you he scruples
not to say so, but Porthos, in like circumstances, offers you his paw,
meaning 'Farewell,' and to bearded men he does this all the time (I
think because of a hereditary distaste for goats), so that they conceive
him to be enamoured of them when he is only begging them courteously to
go. Thus while the manners of Porthos are more polite it may be argued
that those of David are more efficacious.