No night was this in Hades with solemn-eyed Dante, for Satan was only a woolly little black dog, and surely no dog was ever more absurdly misnamed.  When Uncle Carey first heard that name, he asked gravely: 

“Why, Dinnie, where in h—–­,” Uncle Carey gulped slightly, “did you get him?” And Dinnie laughed merrily, for she saw the fun of the question, and shook her black curls.  “He didn’t come f’um that place.”

Distinctly Satan had not come from that place.  On the contrary, he might by a miracle have dropped straight from some Happy Hunting-Ground, for all the signs he gave of having touched pitch in this or another sphere.  Nothing human was ever born that was gentler, merrier, more trusting or more lovable than Satan.  That was why Uncle Carey said again gravely that he could hardly tell Satan and his little mistress apart.  He rarely saw them apart, and as both had black tangled hair and bright black eyes; as one awoke every morning with a happy smile and the other with a jolly bark; as they played all day like wind-shaken shadows and each won every heart at first sight—­the likeness was really rather curious.  I have always believed that Satan made the spirit of Dinnie’s house, orthodox and severe though it was, almost kindly toward his great namesake.  I know I have never been able, since I knew little Satan, to think old Satan as bad as I once painted him, though I am sure the little dog had many pretty tricks that the “old boy” doubtless has never used in order to amuse his friends.

“Shut the door, Saty, please,” Dinnie would say, precisely as she would say it to Uncle Billy, the butler, and straightway Satan would launch himself at it—­bang!  He never would learn to close it softly, for Satan liked that—­bang!

If you kept tossing a coin or marble in the air, Satan would keep catching it and putting it back in your hand for another throw, till you got tired.  Then he would drop it on a piece of rag carpet, snatch the carpet with his teeth, throw the coin across the room, and rush for it like mad, until he got tired.  If you put a penny on his nose, he would wait until you counted, one—­two—­ three!  Then he would toss it up himself and catch it.  Thus, perhaps, Satan grew to love Mammon right well, but for another and better reason than that he liked simply to throw it around—­as shall now be made plain.

A rubber ball with a hole in it was his favorite plaything, and he would take it in his mouth and rush around the house like a child, squeezing it to make it whistle.  When he got a new ball, he would hide his old one away until the new one was the worse worn of the two, and then he would bring out the old one again.  If Dinnie gave him a nickel or a dime, when they went down-town, Satan would rush into a store, rear up on the counter where the rubber balls were kept, drop the coin, and get a ball for himself.  Thus, Satan learned finance.  He began to hoard his pennies, and one day Uncle Carey found a pile of seventeen under a corner of the carpet.  Usually he carried to Dinnie all coins that he found in the street, but he showed one day that he was going into the ball-business for himself.