three of those hairy little red rugs landladies are so fond of, up in a corner; and got it on to them, and put down my bread and milk.  But it wouldn’t eat—­its sense of proportion was all gone, fairly destroyed by terror.  It lay there moaning, and every now and then it raised its head with a ‘yap’ of sheer fright, dreadful to hear, and bit the air, as if its enemies were on it again; and this fellow of mine lay in the opposite corner, with his head on his paw, watching it.  I sat up for a long time with that poor beast, sick enough, and wondering how it had come to be stoned and kicked and battered into this state; and next day I made it my business to find out.”

Our friend paused, scanned us a little angrily, and then went on:  “It had made its first appearance, it seems, following a bicyclist.  There are men, you know—­save the mark—­who, when their beasts get ill or too expensive, jump on their bicycles and take them for a quick run, taking care never to look behind them.  When they get back home they say:  ‘Hallo! where’s Fido?’ Fido is nowhere, and there’s an end!  Well, this poor puppy gave up just as it got to our village; and, roaming shout in search of water, attached itself to a farm labourer.  The man with excellent intentions—­as he told me himself—­tried to take hold of it, but too abruptly, so that it was startled, and snapped at him.  Whereon he kicked it for a dangerous cur, and it went drifting back toward the village, and fell in with the boys coming home from school.  It thought, no doubt, that they were going to kick it too, and nipped one of them who took it by the collar.  Thereupon they hullabalooed and stoned it down the road to where I found them.  Then I put in my little bit of torture, and drove it away, through fear of infection to my own dog.  After that it seems to have fallen in with a man who told me:  ’Well, you see, he came sneakin’ round my house, with the children playin’, and snapped at them when they went to stroke him, so that they came running in to their mother, an’ she’ called to me in a fine takin’ about a mad dog.  I ran out with a shovel and gave ’im one, and drove him out.  I’m sorry if he wasn’t mad, he looked it right enough; you can’t be too careful with strange dogs.’  Its next acquaintance was an old stone-breaker, a very decent sort.  ‘Well! you see,’ the old man explained to me, ’the dog came smellin’ round my stones, an’ it wouldn’ come near, an’ it wouldn’ go away; it was all froth and blood about the jaw, and its eyes glared green at me.  I thought to meself, bein’ the dog-days—­I don’t like the look o’ you, you look funny!  So I took a stone, an’ got it here, just on the ear; an’ it fell over.  And I thought to meself:  Well, you’ve got to finish it, or it’ll go bitin’ somebody, for sure!  But when I come to it with my hammer, the dog it got up—­an’ you know how it is when there’s somethin’ you’ve ’alf killed, and you feel sorry, and yet you feel you must finish it, an’ you hit at it blind, you hit at it agen an’ agen.  The poor thing, it wriggled and snapped, an’ I was terrified it’d bite me, an’ some’ow it got away."’ Again our friend paused, and this time we dared not look at him.