“You say that as if you thought there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. You are making a mistake. If I am had up for begging as well as you, we shall both of us go to prison. The fact that I have no need to steal or beg, can pay for getting drunk and taking holidays, is hardly to the point--you must see that! Do not be led away by sentimental talk; if we appear before a judge, we both must suffer punishment. I am not so likely to appear as you perhaps, but that’s an accident. No, please don’t say that dreadful thing again! I wish to help you. There is Canada, but they don’t want you. I would send you anywhere to stop your eyes from haunting me, but they don’t want you. Where do they want you? Tell me, and you shall go.” “I am a lost dog.” “You remind me of that white shadow with little liver spots that my spaniel dog and I picked up one night when we were going home. “‘Master,’ he said, ‘there’s such an amusing cur out there in the middle of the road.’ “‘Behave yourself! Don’t pick up with anything you come across like this!’ “‘Master, I know it is a thin and dirty cur, but the creature follows me.’ “‘Keep to heel! The poor dog will get lost if you entice him far from home.’ “‘Oh, master! that’s just what’s so amusing. He hasn’t any.’ “And like a little ghost the white dog crept along behind. We looked to read his collar; it was gone. We took him home--and how he ate, and how he drank! But my spaniel said to me: “‘Master, what is the use of bringing in a dog like this? Can’t you see what he is like? He has eaten all my meat, drunk my bowl dry, and he is now sleeping in my bed.’ “I said to him: ‘My dear, you ought to like to give this up to this poor dog.’ “And he said to me: ‘Master, I _don’t_! He is no good, this dog; I am cleaner and fatter than he. And don’t you know there’s a place on the other side of the water for all this class of dog? When are we going to take him there?’ “And I said to him: ‘My dear, don’t ask me; _I don’t know_.’ “And you are like that dog, standing there with those eyes of yours and that weak chin and those weak knees, before this half-built house with the winter coming on. And I am like my spaniel, who knows there is a proper place for all your kind of creature. Man! what shall I do with you?” “I am a lost dog.” DEMOS II DEMOS “Well, she’s my wife, ain’t she?” He put his hands on the handles of his barrow as though to take it away from one who could not see his point of view, wheeled it two yards, and stopped. “It’s no matter what I done to her. Look ’ere!” He turned his fish-white face, and his dead eyes came suddenly to life, with a murky, yellow glare, as though letting escape the fumes within his soul. “I ought to ha’ put her to bed with a shovel long ago; and I will, too, first chance I get.” “You are talking like a madman.” “Look ’ere, ’as a man a right to his own wife an’ children?” His thick loose lower lip trembled. “You tell me that!”