. "'Twal' hunner'd,' says he."

"James Moore and his dog agin" snapped M'Adam. "There's ithers in the
warld for bye them twa."

"Ay, but none like 'em," quoth loyal Jim.

"Na, thanks be. Gin there were there'd be no room for Adam M'Adam in
this 'melancholy vale.'"

There was silence a moment, and then--:

"You're wantin' a tyke, bain't you, Mr. M'Adam?" Jim asked.

The little man hopped round all in a hurry.

"What!" he cried in well-affected eagerness, scanning the yellow mongrel
beneath the chair. "Betsy for sale! Guid life! Where's ma check-book?"
Whereat Jim, most easily snubbed of men, collapsed.

M'Adam took off his dripping coat and crossed the room to hang it on a
chair-back. The stranger drover followed the meagre, shirt-clad figure
with shifty eyes; then he buried his face in his mug.

M'Adam reached out a hand for the chair; and as he did so, a bomb in
yellow leapt out from beneath it, and, growling horribly, attacked his
ankles.

"Curse ye!" cried M'Adam, starting back.

"Ye devil, let me alone!" Then turning fiercely on the drover, "Yours,
mister?" he asked. The man nodded. "Then call him aff, can't ye? D--n
ye!" At which Teddy Bolstock withdrew, sniggering; and Jim Mason slung
the post-bags on to his shoulder and plunged out into the rain, the
faithful Betsy following, disconsolate.

The cause of the squall, having beaten off the attacking force, had
withdrawn again beneath its chair. M'Adam stooped down, still cursing,
his wet coat on his arm, and beheld a tiny yellow puppy, crouching
defiant in the dark, and glaring out with fiery light eyes. Seeing
itself remarked, it bared its little teeth, raised its little bristles,
and growled a hideous menace.

A sense of humor is many a man's salvation, and was M'Adam's one
redeeming feature. The laughableness of the thing--this ferocious atomy
defying him--struck home to the little man. Delighted at such a display
of vice in so tender a plant, he fell to chuckling.

"Ye leetle devil!" he laughed. "He! he! ye leetle devil!" and flipped
together finger and thumb in vain endeavor to coax the puppy to him.

But it growled, and glared more terribly.

"Stop it, ye little snake, or I'll flatten you!" cried the big drover,
and shuffled his feet threateningly. Whereat the puppy, gurgling like
hot water in a kettle, made a feint as though to advance and wipe them
out, these two bad men.

M'Adam laughed again, and smote his leg.

"Keep a ceevil tongue