Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/334

300 Mr. Muir drew his chair a little nearer to hers.

“Miss Carter,” he said, “I have for a long time”—

“M-m-m-h-m-m-m,” remarked Fuzz, in a plaintive falsetto.

Alas for Mr. Muir! Fuzz had brought his ball and laid it at the young man’s feet, and  then seated himself at a distance, wagging his  tail, and blinking suggestively at his toy.

“What does he want of me?” asked the young man helplessly.

“He wants you to throw it for him,” said Bess. “See,” she added, as the dog rose to a sitting posture, “he is begging you  for it.”

“M-m-m-m-m-m-m,” added Fuzz, in an explanatory tone.

Mr. Muir took the ball and threw it from him with an energy that was not entirely  caused by his devotion to Fuzz. But this was just what the dog wished, and away he scrambled after it, twisting up the rugs and knocking  down the fire-irons with a clatter as he went. Mr. Muir had returned to the charge.