But never would we have dared to expose the silken-haired Percy to the inclemency of such a night. On the other hand, Bashan stands in great fear of even the slightest pain, and every twinge wrings from him a response, the whining complaint of which would arouse aversion, if its naive, folkish quality did not disarm one and set the springs of gaiety aflow. Again and again, during his prowlings in the underwood, I have heard him squeal aloud—a thorn had chanced to prick him, or a resilient branch had switched him across the face, and if he happened to have scratched his belly a little in vaulting over the fence, or sprained his foot, I have been treated to an antique hero’s chorus, a three-legged limping approach, an uncontrollable wailing and self-lamentation. And the more sympathetically I talked to him, the more insistent his clamour became—though in a quarter of an hour he would be swooping and running about as madly as before. Percy was of a different metal. Percy would grit his teeth and keep mum. He feared the rawhide whip just as Bashan fears it, and unfortunately he got a taste of it oftener than Bashan; for, first of all, I was younger and more hot-tempered during his epoch than I am at present, and secondly, his heedlessness often assumed a wanton and sinister aspect which simply clamoured for chastisement and urged me to it. When, driven to extremities, I would take down the whip from the nail, then, it is true, he would crawl under the table or bench and make himself small, but never a howl passed his lips when the blow, and perhaps yet another, came humming down upon his back; at most he gave a low moan, in case the whip bit too hard. But Bully Bashan begins to shriek and whimper when I merely raise my arm. In short, he is without pride or dignity, without self-restraint or self-discipline. But his activities seldom call for armed punitive intervention—the less so since I have long ago ceased to demand achievements from him which are contrary to his nature and insistence upon which might lead to a collision.