“What’s the matter, old boy?” inquired Brown.  “Lonesome, are you?”

Job was making himself the center of a small-sized sand spout.

“Humph!  Well . . . well, all right.  I’m not going to hurt you.  Stay where you are, and I won’t shut the door.”

But this compromise was not satisfactory, because the moment the young man started to cross the threshold the dog started to follow.  When Brown halted, he followed suit—­and howled.  Then the substitute assistant surrendered unconditionally.

“All right,” he said.  “Come in, then, if you want to.  Come in! but for goodness sake keep still when you are in.”

He strode into the kitchen, leaving the door open.  Job slunk after him, and crouched with his muzzle across the sill, evidently not yet certain that his victory was complete.  He did not howl, however, and his late adversary was thankful for the omission.

Brown bethought himself of the water in the wash boiler and, removing the cover, tested it with his finger.  It was steadily heating, but not yet at the boiling point.  He pushed the boiler aside, lifted a lid of the range and inspected the fire.  From behind him came a yelp, another, a thump, and then a series of thumps and yelps.  He turned and saw Job in the center of the floor apparently having a fit.

The moment his back was turned, the pup had sneaked into the kitchen.  It was not a large kitchen, and Job was distinctly a large dog.  Also, he was suspicious of further assaults with the fire shovel and had endeavored to find a hiding place under the table.  In crawling beneath this article of furniture he had knocked off a sheet of the fly paper.  This had fallen “butter side down” upon his back, and stuck fast.  He reached aft to pull it loose with his teeth and had encountered a second sheet laid on a chair.  This had stuck to his neck.  Job was an apprehensive animal by nature and as the result of experience, and his nerves were easily unstrung.  He forgot the shovel, forgot the human whom he had been fearfully trying to propitiate, forgot everything except the dreadful objects which clung to him and pulled his hair.  He rolled from beneath the table, a shrieking, kicking, snapping cyclone.  And that kitchen was no place for a cyclone.

He rolled and whirled for an instant, then scrambled to his feet and began running in widening circles.  Brown tried to seize him as he passed, but he might as well have seized a railroad train.  Another chair, also loaded with fly paper, upset, and Job added a third sheet to his collection.  This one plastered itself across his nose and eyes.  He ceased running forward and began to leap high in the air and backwards.  The net containing the big lobster fell to the floor.  Then John Brown fled to the open air, leaned against the side of the building and screamed with laughter.