Uncle Carey had given Dinnie a nickel for some candy, and, as usual, Satan trotted down the street behind her.  As usual, Satan stopped before the knick-knack shop.

“Tum on, Saty,” said Dinnie.  Satan reared against the door as he always did, and Dinnie said again: 

“Tum on, Saty.”  As usual, Satan dropped to his haunches, but what was unusual, he failed to bark.  Now Dinnie had got a new ball for Satan only that morning, so Dinnie stamped her foot.

“I tell you to tum on, Saty.”  Satan never moved.  He looked at Dinnie as much as to say: 

“I have never disobeyed you before, little mistress, but this time I have an excellent reason for what must seem to you very bad manners—­” and being a gentleman withal, Satan rose on his haunches and begged.

“You’re des a pig, Saty,” said Dinnie, but with a sigh for the candy that was not to be, Dinnie opened the door, and Satan, to her wonder, rushed to the counter, put his forepaws on it, and dropped from his mouth a dime.  Satan had found that coin on the street.  He didn’t bark for change, nor beg for two balls, but he had got it in his woolly little head, somehow, that in that store a coin meant a ball, though never before nor afterward did he try to get a ball for a penny.

Satan slept in Uncle Carey’s room, for of all people, after Dinnie, Satan loved Uncle Carey best.  Every day at noon he would go to an upstairs window and watch the cars come around the corner, until a very tall, square-shouldered young man swung to the ground, and down Satan would scamper—­yelping—­to meet him at the gate.  If Uncle Carey, after supper and when Dinnie was in bed, started out of the house, still in his business clothes, Satan would leap out before him, knowing that he too might be allowed to go; but if Uncle Carey had put on black clothes that showed a big, dazzling shirt-front, and picked up his high hat, Satan would sit perfectly still and look disconsolate; for as there were no parties or theatres for Dinnie, so there were none for him.  But no matter how late it was when Uncle Carey came home, he always saw Satan’s little black nose against the window-pane and heard his bark of welcome.

After intelligence, Satan’s chief trait was lovableness—­nobody ever knew him to fight, to snap at anything or to get angry; after lovableness, it was politeness.  If he wanted something to eat, if he wanted Dinnie to go to bed, if he wanted to get out of the door, he would beg—­beg prettily on his haunches, his little red tongue out and his funny little paws hanging loosely.  Indeed, it was just because Satan was so little less than human, I suppose, that old Satan began to be afraid he might have a soul.  So the wicked old namesake with the Hoofs and Horns laid a trap for little Satan, and, as he is apt to do, he began laying it early—­ long, indeed, before Christmas.