When Dinnie started to kindergarten that autumn, Satan found that there was one place where he could never go.  Like the lamb, he could not go to school; so while Dinnie was away, Satan began to make friends.  He would bark, “Howdy-do?” to every dog that passed his gate.  Many stopped to rub noses with him through the fence—­even Hugo the mastiff, and nearly all, indeed, except one strange-looking dog that appeared every morning at precisely nine o’clock and took his stand on the corner.  There he would lie patiently until a funeral came along, and then Satan would see him take his place at the head of the procession; and then he would march out to the cemetery and back again.  Nobody knew where he came from nor where he went, and Uncle Carey called him the “funeral dog” and said he was doubtless looking for his dead master.  Satan even made friends with a scrawny little yellow dog that followed an old drunkard around—­a dog that, when his master fell in the gutter, would go and catch a policeman by the coat-tail, lead the officer to his helpless master, and spend the night with him in jail.

By and by Satan began to slip out of the house at night, and Uncle Billy said he reckoned Satan had “jined de club”; and late one night, when he had not come in, Uncle Billy told Uncle Carey that it was “powerful slippery and he reckoned they’d better send de kerridge after him”—­an innocent remark that made Uncle Carey send a boot after the old butler, who fled chuckling down the stairs, and left Uncle Carey chuckling in his room.

Satan had “jined de club”—­the big club—­and no dog was too lowly in Satan’s eyes for admission; for no priest ever preached the brotherhood of man better than Satan lived it—­both with man and dog.  And thus he lived it that Christmas night—­to his sorrow.

Christmas Eve had been gloomy—­the gloomiest of Satan’s life.  Uncle Carey had gone to a neighboring town at noon.  Satan had followed him down to the station, and when the train departed, Uncle Carey had ordered him to go home.  Satan took his time about going home, not knowing it was Christmas Eve.  He found strange things happening to dogs that day.  The truth was, that policemen were shooting all dogs found that were without a collar and a license, and every now and then a bang and a howl somewhere would stop Satan in his tracks.  At a little yellow house on the edge of town he saw half a dozen strange dogs in a kennel, and every now and then a negro would lead a new one up to the house and deliver him to a big man at the door, who, in return, would drop something into the negro’s hand.  While Satan waited, the old drunkard came along with his little dog at his heels, paused before the door, looked a moment at his faithful follower, and went slowly on.  Satan little knew the old drunkard’s temptation, for in that yellow house kind-hearted people had offered fifteen cents for each dog brought to them, without a license, that they might mercifully put it to death, and fifteen cents was the precise price for a drink of good whiskey.  Just then there was another bang and another howl somewhere, and Satan trotted home to meet a calamity.  Dinnie was gone.  Her mother had taken her out in the country to Grandmother Dean’s to spend Christmas, as was the family custom, and Mrs. Dean would not wait any longer for Satan; so she told Uncle Billy to bring him out after supper.