to let them find you.' So he took him to
a police-station near, and very soon Scamp was sent down with a
shivering little fox-terrier to the Dogs' Home at Battersea.
He did not understand that it was his only chance of getting home; for
Ethel and Jack's father would know about the home, and send there to see
if he were there first of all. And he thought that the people at the
Dogs' Home were going to keep him all his life, and he did not like the
idea at all. For many dogs it would have been a comfortable place. There
were nice little kennels and good beds of hay, and plenty of drinking
water and clean good biscuit to eat, and little yards to run about in;
but Scamp was not happy. He was accustomed to live in the house and
sleep on the chairs, and be petted and made a fuss with, and nobody took
any notice of him here. He was very hungry, though, so he tried to eat
a little of the dog-biscuit; but in the middle he suddenly thought of
Ethel and Jack and how he loved them, and that he should never find them
again, and he stopped eating because a great lump seemed to stick in his
throat, and he went and sat down in a corner of the yard, just a heap of
gray hair and unhappiness. Presently a man came and patted him and spoke
kindly to him, but he took no notice. He thought how often he had been
cross when Ethel had hurt him in combing his hair, though she had only
been trying to make him look nice, and how sulky he had been many times
when she wanted to play with him; and he thought if only he could get
back he would be so good. All the bad things he had done in his life
came into his mind as he sat in the yard. He remembered that, when he
was only a puppy, about a year ago, he had worried one of Ethel's dolls,
and she had cried, and he had licked her face and tried to tell her he
was sorry, and she had flung her arms round him, and said: 'Never mind,
dear good old Scamp! I love you more than all the dolls, and I know you
didn't mean it.' How good she was always! He loved her better than Jack,
though she did tease him. She had often dressed him up in her dolls'
clothes and made him lie upside down in her arms in a very uncomfortable
position, while she pretended he was a baby.
He had killed a canary once, and once--it was very sad, and he did not
quite know how it had happened--he had got on to the sideboard and eaten
the cold beef while everyone was out at church on Sunday morning. The
beef had been left there uncovered, a
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