Sappers and Miners Part 70

The dog sprang to him, rose on his hind-legs, and put his fore-paws on his master's hands.

"Only a game, was it, Grippy? You understand your master, don't you?"

The dog gave a joyous bark.

"There; says he does."

"Don't fool about, I want to talk to you," said Joe, sternly.

"All right, old lively. How was the governor this morning? You look as if you'd taken some of his physic by mistake. Now, Grip, how are your poor legs?"

"_Ahow-w-ow_!" howled the dog, throwing up his muzzle and making a most dismal sound.

"Feel the change in the weather?"

A bark.

"Do you, now? But they are quite strong again, aren't they?"

"_How-how-ow-ow_" yelped the dog.

"Here, what made you begin talking about that?"

"What? His broken legs?"

"Yes."

"Pride, I suppose, in our cure. Or nonsense, just to tease the dog. He always begins to howl when I talk about his legs. Don't you, Grip?

Poor old cripple, then."

"Ahow!" yelped the dog.

"Why did you ask?"

"Because it seemed curious. I say, Gwyn, I believe I did that man an injustice."

"What man an injustice?" said Gwyn, who was pretending to tie the dog's long silky ears in a knot across his eyes.

"Tom Dina.s.s."

The dog bounded from where he stood on his hind-legs resting on his master's knees, and burst into a furious fit of barking.

"Hark at him!" cried Gwyn. "Talk about dogs being intelligent animals?

It's wonderful. He never liked the fellow. Hi! Tom Dina.s.s there. Did he break your legs, Grip?"

The dog barked furiously, and ended with a savage growl.

"Just like we are," said Gwyn, "like some people, and hate others. I begin to think you were right, Joe, and he did do it."

"Oh, no--impossible!"

"Well, it doesn't matter. He's gone."

"No, he has not," said Joe, quietly. "He has been hanging about here ever since he left six months ago."

"What! I've never seen him."

"I have, and he has spoken to me over and over again."

"Why, you never told me."

"No, but I thought a good deal about it."

"What did he say to you?"

"That it was very hard for a man who had done his best for the mine to be turned away all of a sudden just because Sam Hardock and the fellows hated him."

"He wouldn't have been turned away for that. But as father said, when a man strikes his superior officer he must be punished, or there would be no discipline in a corps."

"I daresay Sam Hardock exasperated him first."

"Well, you often exasperate me, Jolly, but I don't take up a miner's hammer and knock you down."

"No," said Joe, thinking in a pensive way; "you're a good patient fellow. But he said it was very hard for a man to be thrown out of work for six months for getting in a bit of temper."

"Bit of temper, indeed! I should think it was! I tell you it was murderous! Why don't he go and get taken on at some other mine? There are plenty in Cornwall, and he's a good workman. Let him go where he isn't known, and not hang about here."

"He says he has tried, and he wants to come back."

"And you and me to put up a pet.i.tion for him!"

"Yes, that's it."

"Then we just won't--will we, Grip? We don't want any Tom Dina.s.s here, do we?"

The dog growled furiously.

"Don't set the dog against him, Ydoll. I did accuse him of having done that, but he looked at me in a horrified way, and said I couldn't know what I was saying, to charge him with such a thing. He said he'd sooner cut his hand off than injure a dog like that."

"And we don't believe him, do we, Grip? Why, you've quite changed your colours, Jolly. You used to be all against him, and now you're all for, and it's I who go against him."

"But you don't want to be unjust, Ydoll?"

"Not a bit of it. I'm going to be always as just as Justice. There, let's get to work again. I've a lot of letters to write."

"One minute, Ydoll. I want you to oblige me in something."

"If it's to borrow tuppence, I can't."