ink of
such a thing."

Miss Clementina's eyes seemed very wide indeed.

"But he's not my dog at all," she protested. "Isn't he _yours_, Mr.
Maclin?"

"I never laid eyes on him," said Mr. Maclin, "until I moved here. The
first time I saw him he was digging in your geranium bed."

"Oh!" said Miss Clementina, and began to laugh.

"And to think," she said, "of all the outrageous things he has done!
And neither of us daring to say a word because we each thought he
belonged to the other."

Mr. Maclin laughed with her. "I think," he said, "that from now on the
little brown dog will have to reform."

V.

But the little brown dog did not reform. With unabated cheerfulness he
continued to dig in Miss Clementina's geranium bed, and to chew Mr.
Maclin's doormat.

"He's hungry," said Miss Clementina; "you should give him more dog
biscuits."

"He has too much to eat," retorted Mr. Maclin. "He digs holes in the
geranium bed to bury the bones you give him."

The little brown dog was fast becoming a bond of union between the
lonely man and the lonelier woman.

"_Your_ dog has chewed up my new magazine," Miss Clementina would call
to her neighbor. "Do take him home."

"Oh, no," Mr. Maclin would call back. "That is not _my_ dog. _My_ dog
is chasing a gray cat out of the back yard."

But one day the little brown dog disappeared. Mr. Maclin laid down a
new doormat, and said he was glad it needn't be chewed up right away.

Miss Clementina filled in the holes in the geranium bed, and set out
some new plants. She gathered up a bone, two old shoes and a chewed-up
newspaper, and expressed the hope that once more she might be able to
keep the lawn tidy.

Twenty-four hours later the little brown dog had not returned. Mr.
Maclin went out and gave the unoffending new doormat a savage kick.
Then he put on his hat and went down the street--whistling. It was not
a musical whistle. On the contrary, it was shrill and ear-piercing. It
was, in fact, the whistle that the little brown dog had been wont to
interpret as meaning that Mr. Maclin desired his immediate presence.

Once, when Mr. Maclin paused for breath, he heard faintly: "Dog, dog,
dog!"

It was thus that Miss Clementina had been in the habit of summoning
the little brown dog.

Mr. Maclin turned and walked in the direction of her voice. Folly,
like misery, loves company.

"The little brown dog," said Miss Clementina, when Mr. Maclin had
overtaken her; "_where_ do you