“’But it had to be done.  They were all at supper, and mother took it just as I was afraid she would.  If she only would have waited and let me tell how I came by the dog, I thought maybe she would have felt sorry for the poor thing; but she was in such a hurry to get his muddy feet off the dining-room carpet that she wouldn’t listen to a single word I said, but kept saying, “Turn him out! turn him out!” till I found it was no use, and I was just going to do as she said when father looked up from his supper, and says he:  “Let the boy tell his story, mother.  Where did you get the dog, Tommy?” “’We were all surprised, for father hardly ever interfered with mother about us children—­he’s so taken up with business, you know, he hasn’t any time left for the family.  But I was glad enough to tell him how I came by the dog; and he laughed, and said he didn’t see any objection to my keeping him over night.  I might give him some supper and tie him up in the shed-chamber, and in the morning he’d have him taken round to Police-station C, where, if he wasn’t claimed in four days, he’d be taken care of.

“’I knew well enough how they’d take care of him at Station C. They’d shoot him—­that’s what they do to stray dogs without any friends.  But anyhow, I could keep him over night, for mother would think it was all right, now father had said so.  So I took him to the shed-chamber and gave him a good supper,—­how he did eat!—­and I found an old mat for him to lie on, and got a basin of warm water and some soap, and washed him as clean as I could and rubbed him dry, and made him warm and comfortable:  and he licking my hands and face and wagging his stump of a tail and thanking me for it as plain as though he could talk.

“’But oh, how he hated to be tied up!  Fact is, he made such a fuss I stayed out there with him till past my bed-time; and when at last I had to go I left him howling and tugging at the string.  Well, I went to sleep, and, after a while, I woke up, and that dog was at it still.  I could hear him howl just as plain, though the shed-chamber was at the back of the house, ever so far from my room.  I knew mother hadn’t come upstairs, for the gas was burning in the halls, as she always turned it off the last thing; and I thought to myself:  “If she hears the dog when she comes up, maybe she’ll put him out, and I never shall see him again.”  And before I knew what I was about I was running through the hall and the trunk-room, and so out into the shed.  It was pitch dark out there, but I found my way to Grip easy enough by the noise he made when he saw me; and it didn’t take long to untie the string and catch him up and run back with him to my room.  I knew he would be as still as a mouse in there with me.  You were lonesome out there in the shed, weren’t you, Grip?