Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/320



it must be my lot to dream out a life of insubstantial visions, that were well. But it appeared not unreasonable that I should keep at least one ponderable dog by me, as an emblem of something I had missed through one too many shuffle of the cards before this big game began. Yet Miss Lansdale had clearly resolved to deprive my dreaming of even this slight support of realness. I tried always to remember, in her behalf, that she did not know the circumstances, and she herself very soon discovered that she did not know Jim. The assaults she made upon his fidelity proved her to be past-mistress of tactics and strategy. No possible approach to his heart did she leave untried. She flattered and petted, lured, cajoled, entreated; she menaced, commanded, stormed, raged. Drawing inspiration from a siege celebrated in antiquity, she sought to secrete her forces—not in a horse of wood, but within the frames of numerous fowl, picked to the bone but shredded over so temptingly with fugitive succulence as to have made a dog of feelings less fine her slave for life.