X Billy : a Memoir of an Old Friend 255 



pocket-handkerchief. But the handkerchief on my 

 part, and the delusion on his, were quite sufficient 

 for my purpose. I brought him to the hurdles, 

 passed the handkerchief through his coUar, and 

 pretended to fasten it, while I really whipped it into 

 my pocket again. Then I spent an hour looking at 

 the cricket, and when I returned, my little white dog 

 was still where I had left him, with his head leaning 

 up against the hurdles. 



The strictly logical character of his reasoning led 

 him into another habit of which I could not at first 

 understand the meaning. I had always been accus- 

 tomed, if he failed to appear when I was starting for 

 a walk, to ask him on my return where he had been, 

 and whether he had been up to any mischief; and 

 the tone in which these questions were put appealed 

 very strongly to his moral sense. But I was a little 

 discomfited to find that he had extended the idea of 

 delinquency to every absence of mine, no matter how 

 long it had lasted. When I returned home and 

 came in sight of the house, I always saw him looking 

 out for me (he knew of course when I was expected), 

 but no whistling or calling could ever entice him to 

 run and welcome me. He lay there sadly and 

 silently, in the full consciousness that he ought to 

 have been with me all the time, and evidently doubt- 

 ful of his reception. Only when I had put it beyond 

 doubt that I was not displeased with him would he 



