Bobby's guardian would
have liked very well to have sat before the canteen in the sun and
gossiped about his small charge. However, in the sergeant's
sleeping-quarters above the mess-room, he had the little dog all to
himself, and Bobby had the liveliest interest in the boxes and
pots, brushes and sponges, and in the processes of polishing,
burnishing, and pipe-claying a soldier's boots and buttons and
belts. As he worked at his valeting, the man kept time with his
foot to rude ballads that he sang in such a hissing Celtic that
Bobby barked, scandalized by a dialect that had been music in the
ears of his ancestors. At that Private McLean danced a Highland
fling for him, and wee Bobby came near bursting with excitement.
When the sergeant came up to make a magnificent toilet for tea and
for the evening in town, the soldier expressed himself with
enthusiasm.
"He iss a deffle of a dog, sir!"
He was thought to be a "deffle of a dog" in the mess, where the
non-com officers had tea at small writing and card tables. They
talked and laughed very fast and loud, tried Bobby out on all the
pretty tricks he knew, and taught him to speak and to jump for a
lump of sugar balanced on his nose. They did not fondle him, and
this rough, masculine style of pampering and petting was very much
to his liking. It was a proud thing, too, for a little dog, to walk
out with the sergeant's shining boots and twirled walkingstick, and
be introduced into one strange place after another all around the
Castle.
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