He worked leisurely, stowing those almost advanced garments so that they should show as few wrinkles as possible after their confinement.  Occasionally Nap diverted his thoughts by some louder growl than usual in the outer room, or by some noisier scramble.

The trunk was packed and locked for the final time.  Thrice had it been unlocked and opened to receive slight forgotten objects.  The last to be placed directly under the lid was the entirely scarlet cravat.  He was equal to wearing it now, but a sense of the morrow’s proprieties deterred him.  The stricken mother!  In deference to her he laid out for the morning’s wear the nearest to a black cravat that he possessed, an article surely unassuming enough to be no offence in a house of mourning.

He fastened the straps of the trunk and sighed in relief.  It was a steamer trunk, and he was to sail on a little old steamer, but other people had survived that ordeal.  Ram-tah would have met it boldly.  Ram-tah!

He stood in the doorway, his attention attracted to Nap, who had for some moments been more than usually vocal.  In a far corner Nap had a roundish object between his paws and his sharp teeth tore viciously at it.  He looked up and growled in fierce pretence that his master also wished to gnaw this delectable object.

A moment Bean stood there, looking, looking.  Slowly certain details cleared to his vision:  the details of an unspeakable atrocity.  He felt his knees grow weak, and clutched at the doorway for support.

The body of Ram-tah was out of its case and half across the room, yards of the swathed linen unfurled; but, more terrible than all, the head of Ram-tah was not where it should have been.

In the far corner the crouching Nap gnawed at that head, tearing, mutilating, desecrating.

“Napoleon!” It was a cry of little volume, but tense and terrible.  Napoleon, destroyer of kings!  In this moment he once more put the creature’s full name upon him.  The dog found the name alarming; perceived that he had committed some one of those offences for which he was arbitrarily punished.  He relaxed the stout jaws, crawled slinkingly to the couch, and leaped upon it.  Once there, he whimpered protestingly.  One of the few clear beliefs he had about a perplexing social system was that nothing hurtful could befall him once he had gained that couch.  It was sanctuary.

Bean’s next emotion was sympathy for the dog’s fright.  He tottered across to the couch, mumbling little phrases of reassurance to the abject Nap.  He sat down beside him, and put a kindly arm about him.

“Why, why, Nappy!  Yes, ’sall right, yes, he was—­most beautiful doggie in the whole world; yes, he was.”

He hardly dared look toward the scene of the outrage.  The calamity was overwhelming, but how could dogs know any better?  Timidly, at length, he raised his eyes, first to where the fragmentary head lay, then to the torn body.