“I wish I had a suit of Fifteenth Century armour,” he thought.  “Then Jerry, you could chew on my leg and be damned to you.  You’re a silent dog and I could have a good look while you were wrecking your teeth.”

He went back to the Sawdust Pile at dusk the next evening, hoping Jerry would be absent upon some unlawful private business, but when he approached the gate slowly and noiselessly Jerry spoke up softly from within and practically said:  “Get out or take the consequences.”

The following night, however, The Laird was prepared for Jerry.  He did not halt at the dog’s preliminary warning but advanced and rattled the gate a little.  Immediately Jerry came to the gate and stood just inside growling in his throat, so The Laird thrust an atomizer through the palings and deluged Jerry’s hairy countenance with a fine cloud of spirits of ammonia.  He had once tried that trick on a savage bulldog in which he desired to inculcate some respect for his person, and had succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations.  Therefore, since desperate circumstances always require desperate measures, the memory of that ancient victory had moved him to attempt a similar embarrassment of the dog Jerry.

But Jerry was a devil-dog.  He had been raised and trained by Dirty Dan O’Leary and in company with that interesting anthropoid he had been through many stormy passages.  Long before, he had learned that the offensive frequently wins—­the defensive never.  It is probable that he wept as he sniffed the awful stuff, but if he did they were tears of rage.

Jerry’s first move was to stand on his head and cover his face with his paws.  Then he did several back flips and wailed aloud in his misery and woe, his yelps of distress quite filling the empyrean.  But only for the space of a few seconds.  Recovering his customary aplomb he made a flying leap for the top of the gate, his yelps now succeeded by ambitious growls—­and in self-defense The Laird was forced to spray him again as he clung momentarily on top of the palings.  With a sob Jerry dropped back and buried his nose in the dust, while The Laird beat a hurried retreat into the darkness, for he had lost all confidence in his efforts to inculcate in Jerry an humble and contrite spirit.

He could hear rapid footsteps inside the little house; then the door opened and in the light that streamed from within he was indistinctly visible to Nan as she stood in the doorway.

“Jerry!” he heard her call.  “Good dog!  What’s the matter?  After him, Jerry.  Go get him, Jerry!” She ran to the gate and opened it for the dog, who darted through, but paused again to run his afflicted nose in the dust and roll a couple of times.  Apparently he felt that there was no great hurry; his quarry could not escape him.  It is probable, also, that he was more or less confused and not quite certain which direction the enemy had taken, for Jerry’s sense of smell was temporarily suspended and his eyes blinded by tears; certain his language was not at all what it should have been.