All this time Grumbo maintained toward every one, not even excepting his
master, a grim, severe reserve--keeping much alone, seldom indulging in
cooked meat, more seldom still in raw, and never tasting his
corn-dodgers. The red barbarian, in particular, he regarded with an evil
eye--holding him in worse and worse odor, as the rest received him into
higher and higher favor. Time and again did the captain essay to explain
to his lieutenant how matters stood between them and their prisoner, but
in vain. With that consistency of mind and fixedness of purpose for
which he was remarkable, our canine hero stubbornly persisted in making
it manifest that he was not a dog to be whistled, rubbed, and patted
into winking at a measure so lax as that of allowing a red "varmint" to
run at large in their midst, without even so much as a block and chain
to hamper the freedom of his movements, or some sign to bespeak his
inferiority to men and dogs. Perhaps, like some perverse people we have
known, Grumbo took particular delight in being unsatisfactory to every
one but himself. Or, perhaps by the observance of this policy he meant
to reproach his renegade leader for suffering himself to be so easily
led away from the orthodox faith in which they had lived so long and
happily together, and had acted in such harmonious concert. Perhaps,
too, it was meant as a warning that unless he should be given some
assurance that business should hereafter be done up in the regular,
scientific way, he would break with the captain altogether, and attach
himself to the fortunes of some other leader, more consistent and better
fitted to command, and who should have a more just appreciation of what
was due a brave and faithful follower.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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