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"common"; but you shouldn't have laid yourself open to it, to begin with. The gentleman who sent Tom here can handle him as much as he pleases, and treat him precisely as one would treat an ordinary house-dog, but Tom has a persuasive way of inducing other people not to try the game on their own account—not to try it more than once, at any rate. He will recognise his old master joyfully after a year or two's absence, but I have not yet entered upon patting terms with Tom myself; because I know that lathy appearance of limb to be a deception and a snare. But, at least, Tom is half reformed, and if he lives another few hundred years will probably develop in the regular way into a dog.

Coolie without.

Coolie, next door, is a ruffian, and makes no shame of it. He would like a piece out of you, and doesn't care if you know it. If anything, he would prefer two pieces. Failing that, he would like a piece of Tom; or of North, the keeper; or of Bob, the Eskimo dog; or of his own grandmother, if he could get it. There's no weak sentiment about Coolie. The only thing that would dissuade him from eating a relation would be the event of the relation first eating him. I don't altogether like Coolie; he is not the sort of chap that anybody would fall in love with at first sight. He won't meet your eye so long as he is out in the cage. Try to fix him for a moment; try to annoy him, in fact. He will evade your eye in the shiftiest fashion, keeping you in sight, however, with the corner of his own, for fear of accidents. Presently, at the end of his patience, he will retreat into his lair and give you a straight look at last; one which will convince you at once of the multifarious advantages of Swain conducting these little experiments from this side of the bars.

Coolie within.

But even Coolie has his softer moments, when he will rub against the bars to be patted. I like to pat Coolie myself, and I consider