e
in your life you shall have all you can eat."

It was a rash promise, and the keeping of it involved the chops for
luncheon and all the milk in the house.

"He's rather a nice dog, don't you think?" Miss Clementina said to the
maid, as she watched him eat. "But he has a dreadful appetite. I think
we'd best tell the butcher's boy to bring some dog's meat; chops are
so expensive."

II.

Mr. Kent Maclin took his hat and stick and started for his customary
after-dinner stroll. On the front porch he found a small, brown dog
busily engaged in reducing the doormat to a pulp.

Mr. Maclin recognized the dog as one belonging to the next door
neighbor; he had seen him earlier in the day digging in a bed of
scarlet geraniums. If people _would_ keep dogs, Mr. Maclin thought
they ought at least to teach them to behave. Still, if the lady who
owned the dog could stand it to have her flower beds ruined, Mr.
Maclin supposed he ought not to mind a chewed-up doormat.

The dog was only a puppy, anyway. His manners would probably improve
as he grew older. Mr. Maclin stooped and patted him kindly on the
head. The stubby brown tail thumped the floor ecstatically, and a red
tongue shot out and began licking the polish from Mr. Maclin's shoes.

"Jolly little beggar, aren't you?" said the gentleman. But he backed
hastily away from the moist, red tongue.

III.

Mr. Maclin ordered a new doormat every three days, and kept a package
of dog biscuits in the drawer of the library table. He dealt these out
with a lavish hand whenever the little brown dog saw fit to call for
them, and was not without hope that a cultivated taste for dog biscuit
might in time replace a natural one for doormats.

Mr. Maclin would have been glad to make the acquaintance of the
supposed owner of the little brown dog, but didn't quite know how to
go about it.

But one day, as he watched the little brown dog digging as usual in
the geranium bed, he had an inspiration.

He paid a visit to the florist, and came back with a long pasteboard
box tucked under his arm. It was filled with a glowing mass of red
geraniums.

The composition of a suitable note to accompany the flowers was a task
requiring much time and mental effort.

Finally, in sheer desperation, Mr. Maclin wrote on one of his cards,
"To replace the flowers the dog has dug up," and dropped it among the
scarlet blossoms.

He had hesitated between "the dog" and "your dog," but had decided
again