With a philosophy peculiarly his own, a spirit of wise submission that was more than once to serve him well, he pulled his hat sharply down, braced and squared such appearance of perfect physical development as the eighteen dollars had achieved, and walked away.  He had always known the watch would go.  Now it was gone, no more worry.  Good enough!  As he walked he rehearsed an explanation to Bulger:  cleverly worded intimations that the watch had been pawned to meet a certain quick demand on his resources not morally to his credit.  He made the implication as sinister as he could.

And then he stood once more before the shrine of Beauty.  In the show-window of a bird-and-animal store on Sixth Avenue was a four-months-old puppy, a “Boston-bull,” that was, of a certainty, the most perfect thing ever born of a mother-dog.  Already the head was enormous, in contrast, yet somehow in a maddening harmony with the clean-lined slender body.  The colour-scheme was golden brown on a background of pure white.  On the body this golden brown was distributed with that apparent carelessness which is Art.  Overlaying the sides and back were three patches of it about the size and somewhat the shape of maps of Africa as such are commonly to be observed.  In the colouring of the noble brow and absurdly wide jaws a more tender care was evident.  There was the same golden brown, beginning well back of the ears and flowing lustrously to the edge of the overhanging upper lip, where it darkened.  Midway between the ears—­erectly alert those ears were—­a narrow strip of white descended a little way to open to a circle of white in the midst of which was the black muzzle.  At the point of each nostril was the tiniest speck of pink, Beauty’s last triumphant touch.

As he came to rest before the window the creature leaped forward with joyous madness, reared two clumsy white feet against the glass (those feet that seemed to have been meant for a larger dog), barked ably—­he could hear it even above the din of an elevated train—­and then fell to a frantic licking of the glass where Bean had provocatively spread a hand.  Perceiving this intimacy to be thwarted by some mysterious barrier to be felt but not seen, he backed away, fell forward upon his chest, the too-big paws outspread, and smiled from a vasty pink cavern.  Between the stiffened ears could be seen the crooked tail, tinged with just enough of the brown, in unbelievably swift motion.  Discovering this pose to bring no desired result, he ran mad in the sawdust, excavating it feverishly with his forepaws, sending it expertly to the rear with the others.

The fever passed; he surveyed his admirer for a moment, then began to revolve slowly upon all four feet until he had made in the sawdust a bed that suited him.  Into this he sank and was instantly asleep, his slenderness coiled, the heavy head at rest on a paw, one ear drooping wearily, the other still erect.