After the
morning meal Mr. Brown lighted his pipe and put on his bonnet to
go out again, when he bethought him that Bobby might be needing
something to eat.
"What'll ye gie 'im, Jeanie? At the laird's, noo, the terriers
were aye fed wi' bits o' livers an' cheese an' moor fowls' eggs,
an' sic-like, fried."
"Havers, Jamie, it's no' releegious to feed a dog better than
puir bairns. He'll do fair weel wi' table-scraps."
She set down a plate with a spoonful of porridge on it, a cold
potato, some bread crusts, and the leavings of a broiled caller
herrin'. It was a generous breakfast for so small a dog, but
Bobby had been without food for quite forty hours, and had done
an amazing amount of work in the meantime. When he had eaten all
of it, he was still hungry. As a polite hint, he polished the
empty plate with his pink tongue and looked up expectantly; but
the best-intentioned people, if they have had little to do with
dogs, cannot read such signs.
"Ye needna lick the posies aff," the wifie said, good humoredly,
as she picked the plate up to wash it. She thought to put down a
tin basin of water. Bobby lapped a' it so eagerly, yet so
daintily, that she added: "He's a weel-broucht-up tyke, Jamie."
"He is so. Noo, we'll see hoo weel he can leuk." In a shamefaced
way he fetched from a tool-box a long-forgotten, strong little
currycomb, such as is used on shaggy Shetland ponies. With that
he proceeded to give Bobby such a grooming as he had never had
before.
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