When Bella Parrett reigned alone, it was a sore time for the Manor, and especially for Joss. The old lady did not care for any animals or pets, save a venerable green and blue parrot--her own contemporary. She had accepted Joss, a gift from Mr. Woolcock, as she was assured that, having no man living at the Manor, a dog was a necessity in case of robbers, but chiefly because Miss Parrett half suspected that the Martingales--neighbours of the Woolcocks--were anxious to possess the said amusing little puppy. Joss was often in disgrace; but what could one expect of an idle young dog, without companions, education, or pursuits? When Susan was at home all went well; she looked after him and screened his failings, and took him out--though her sister frequently expostulated, and said-- “Now, I won’t have the creature attaching himself to you, Susan; he must learn to know that he is _my_ dog!” All the same, she never troubled about “her dog’s” food or sleeping quarters, and it was actually Susan who paid for his licence! Now Susan was absent, also his good friend Aurea--and Joss was in confinement and deep disgrace; even before his friends’ departure he had been under a black cloud. His youthful spirits were uncontrollable; Joss had inherited the keen sporting instincts of his father, with the intellectual faculties of his accomplished mother, Colette, the poodle, and was both bold and inquisitive. Recently, the wretched animal had chewed off the tail of a magnificent tiger-skin, and concealed it, no one knew where! Miss Parrett hoped he had eaten it--as it was cured with arsenic--but more likely it had been stored in one of his many bone larders. He had poked his nose into a valuable jar, upset, and smashed it! he had come in all wet and muddy from a rat-hunting excursion in the river, and recouped his exhausted energies by a luxurious siesta in Miss Parrett’s own bed--and there was also a whispered and mysterious communication respecting the disappearance of a best and most expensive _front_, which had undoubtedly gone to the same limbo as the tiger’s tail! “The brute is worse than a dozen monkeys,” declared his furious mistress, and he was accordingly bestowed on a farmer, who lived miles away near Catsfield, merely to return, accompanied by a piece of rope, the same evening. After this, the word “poison” was breathed; but luckily for Joss, Ottinge did not possess a chemist. Finally he was condemned to a fare of cold porridge, and solitary confinement in an empty stable--being suffered to roam loose at night after the house was closed.