Page:Andreyev - The Little Angel (Knopf, 1916).djvu/55

Rh irresolutely his woolly head, and as though this were a sign of undeniable authority, began freely and boldly to run over the whole of his hairy body, rumpling, petting, and tickling.

"Mamma! children! look here, I'm petting Snapper," cried Lelya.

When the children ran up, noisy, loud-voiced, quick and bright as drops of uncontrollable mercury. Snapper cowed down in fear and helpless expectancy: he knew that if any one struck him now, he would no longer be in a position to fix his sharp teeth in the body of the offender: his unappeasable malice had been taken from him. And when they all began to vie in caressing him, he for a long time could not help trembling at each touch of the caressing hand, and the unwonted fondling hurt him as though it had been a blow.

All Snapper's doggy nature expanded. He had now a name, at the sound of which he rushed headlong from the green depths of the garden; he belonged to people, and could serve them. What more did a dog need to make him happy!

Being accustomed to the moderation induced by years of a vagrant, hungry life, he ate but little, but that little changed him out of recognition. His long coat, which formerly had hung in foxy dry tufts on his back and on his belly, which had