you ! " " He is afraid you'll get lost ! " and so on ; 

 and they were still chaffing about it when I grabbed 

 " The Rat " and took him back again. 



Billy's failure to take his puppy was so entirely 

 unexpected and so important that the subject kept 

 cropping up all the evening. It was very amusing 

 then to see how each of those who had wanted to get 

 him succeeded in finding good reasons for thinking 

 that his own puppy was really better than Billy's. 

 However they differed in their estimates of each 

 other's dogs, they all agreed that the best judge in 

 the world could not be certain of picking out the best 

 dog in a good litter until the puppies were several 

 months old ; and they all gave instances in which 

 the best looking puppy had turned out the worst 

 dog, and others in which the one that no one would 

 look at had grown up to be the champion. Goodness 

 knows how long this would have gone on if Robbie 

 had not mischievously suggested that " perhaps * The 

 Rat ' was going to beat the whole lot." There was 

 such a chorus of guffaws at this that no one told any 

 more stories. 



The poor little friendless Rat ! It was unfortunate, 

 but the truth is that he was uglier than before ; and 

 yet I could not help liking him. I fell asleep that night 

 thinking of the two puppies the best and the 

 worst in the litter. No sooner had I gone over all 

 the splendid points in Billy's pup and made up my 

 mind that he was certainly the finest I had ever seen, 

 than the friendly wizened little face, the half-cocked 

 ears and head on one side, the cocky little stump of 



68 



