THE DOG FROM DOONE 61 



bed, as one peels the sheet off a horse, and revealed 

 the youngest of the sehoolboys, fully dressed, and 

 very hot indeed. The heaving of his eliest suggested 

 the finish of a quarter-mile. Beside him was a 

 brindled dog, remotely alhed to the collie, with pale 

 eyes that reflected the grey of the hair round them. 

 He cowered, and looked up at me as one who says, 

 " You've got me. I'm beat. What are you going 

 to do ? " 



It was the Dog from Doone, handing in his checks. 



I did various things. The young gentlemen arose 

 at my bidding from their couches and undressed, 

 and I possessed myself of their candle, and also of a 

 pistol (bought for one-and-eightpence from " a man " 

 at school), with which the wardrobe had been im- 

 partially bombarded. The Dog from Doone, it was 

 explained, only came there sometimes. He lived in 

 the woods, on rabbits. There was an imminent 

 tearfulness in the tones of his bedfellow. I took the 

 purple silk cord from a dressing-gown provided for 

 one of the party by a deluded mother, and fastened 

 it round the dog's neck, on which he and his com- 

 panions obviously gave up all for lost. 



I marched him out, determined to maintain dis- 

 cipline in its strictest sense, and he tugged at the 

 purple cord, in desperate efforts to bolt. I certainly 

 was not going to admit sympathy, or tell the culprits 

 that I had never seen a creature more heartrendingly 

 convinced of his own superfluity and unpopularity, 

 or felt anything more scantily covered than the bones 

 of his shoulders under the thin gi*ey coat. 



I shut him into Patmos, and went forth with the 

 bicycle-lamp to the kitchen. Thanks to a genial 

 system of general confidence, I raided it and the 

 larder with success, and annexed half a loaf of bread, 

 a jug of milk, and a plateful of hashed mutton. 



