always on hand. And [Pg 18]that parrot—though he is no friend of mine—is a terror for picking up news. Jim hangs his cage on a tree opposite my door every fine morning, and the things he tells me are surprising. He has hardly a good word for anybody, but then, what a dull world it would be if we only told the nice things about our friends. Why, we should all be dumb soon.

[Pg 18]

Dan tried to sneak in behind Minkie, but Mam had her eye on him.

“I do believe that naughty Dandy has been in the wars again,” she said. “Millicent, did you see him fighting any other dog?”

“No, mother. He met the doctor’s poodle, but there was no fight.” Minkie was always strictly accurate.

“What a wonder! Anyhow, he is muddy and wet. Ask cook to rub him over with a damp cloth.”

Tibbie, pretending to be asleep, twitched one ear as she saw Dan being led off to the kitchen. “Gnar!” muttered Dan, who hates damp cloths, “wait till I catch you in the garden!” Tibbie just smiled. I must say that cats take life easily; they are given the [Pg 19]best of everything, and do nothing. A friend of mine, a regular old stager, who pulls near in the Black Lion bus, tells me that Tibbie’s method is the only way to get on, and he sees a lot of different people at the inn, so he ought to be a bit of a philosopher. “Make other people work for you,” he says. “That’s the ticket; when they bring you chaff tell ’em you must have oats, an’ snap their heads off if they don’t move quick enough. Bless your hoof, they like it. You hear ’em say: ‘There’s blood for you, a born aristocrat, he is,’ an’ they’ll do any mortal thing you want.”

[Pg 19]

Well, Tibbie curled up like a hedgehog, and listened, because we don’t have many strangers at Dale End. The talk turned on Ostend—no, it’s as true as I’m standing on four legs, but the very first place mentioned had an “end” in it—where the Old Man and Mam and Dorothy had been in the summer. Minkie had measles, or something spotty, so she was forbidden to travel, and we had a ripping July all to ourselves. Eclipse wasn’t in it; why, I had beer every day. They met Mr. Schwartz at Ostend, it seems, [Pg 20]and he took such a fancy to Dolly that he wanted to marry her straight off. She wouldn’t do that, even if Mam and the Guv’nor were agreeable, but she had not heard from Jack for ages, and Schwartz was really very attentive, besides being tremendously rich. Now, we at Dale End find it 

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