Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/328

 time I must ever speak bitterly in your presence. You are sufficiently warned."

While I spoke she had ceased rowing, and we drifted with the current. A long time we drifted, and I rejoiced to see that I had taunted Miss Lansdale into something like interest. I saw that she was uncertain as to the degree of seriousness I had meant my words to convey. Once she began as if they were wholly serious, and once again as if they had been wholly unserious. If she at last appeared to suspect that she must effect a compromise, I dare say she was as nearly correct as I could have put her with any words I knew.

"But you had that dog from the first," she at length decided to say, clearly in self-defence, "and still you are worried and obliged to guard him from evil companions."

"You confess," I exclaimed in triumph.

"You had him as a puppy. Could you have expected so much of him if he had run wild, in a world where any number of good dogs learn unbelief, where they are shocked into it, all in a moment?"

"I didn't have myself from the first," I reminded her, "and I believe only a few trifles less than Jim does. I know that robins ascend without visible means, for example, if you run at them; but I believe it's good to run at them just the same, even more enjoyable than if they sat still to be caught."

"We were speaking of dogs," said Miss Lansdale. "At any rate Jim had you from the first."