“I couldn’t leave the poor old fellow in such a plight, Richard,” he remarked, in an apologetic tone, “so, you see, I took him in.” “Why, he’s got the mange,” said Wentworth, eying the animal with a face of mingled disgust and curiosity. “That’s not his fault,” returned Harrington, coolly, dipping his gloved hand into a box of what appeared to be powdered sulphur, sprinkling a handful on the dog’s back, and rubbing it in. The dog, meanwhile, lying on the ground, was devouring with feeble content a plateful of broken victuals which the young man had procured from the house. He was a miserable, weak, red-eyed, flaccid-jawed, dirty-white old mastiff, and, as the young artist had observed, he had the mange. As ugly, forlorn-looking and worthless a cur in his life as that dead dog which, the old Mohammedan apologue says, the Jewish mob derided in the streets of Jerusalem, when a tall stranger of grave and sweet aspect drew near, and paused to cast a look of compassion on the object of their derision. “Is it not a miracle of ugliness!” jeered the crowd. “But see,” said the stranger, “pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth!” And then, says the Mohammedan story, the people knew that the stranger was the great prophet Jesus, for none but he would look upon a dead dog with the beauty-seeing eye of love. “Poor old fellow,” soliloquized Harrington, “I quite forgot I had him, till he whined for his dinner.” “How confoundedly dirty he is,” observed Wentworth. “Dirty? Oh, no—that’s his color,” said Harrington, naively. “He’s not dirty now, for I washed him.” “The deuce you did!” replied Wentworth, laughing. “Upon my word, Harrington, you’re a regular Brahmin. Though it’s mighty good in you to take so much trouble for a brute like that. Faith, I’d have left him to his fate.” “Oh, well,” replied Harrington, tranquilly, scanning the dog’s back, to see if any diseased spot had escaped him, “the poor old thing has something to do in this world, or he wouldn’t have been sent, and he has a right here, seeing that he does no harm. There, I guess that’ll do, and he’ll be comfortable till I get back.” He took off his glove, patted the old dog on the head, and spoke to him. The animal, who had finished his dinner, feebly wagged his tail, and licked the kind hand, then looked up with bleared red eyes into the face of his protector, still wagging his tail. “Good,” said Harrington; “see how grateful he is! Come, Wentworth, it’s time for us to go,” he continued, rising to his feet. “It’s after four o’clock, and I promised to be there early.” Stooping again, he lifted the dog into the packing-case on some old rags of carpeting, put a pan of water near him, laid the tin box of sulphur and the glove on top, and turned away to the house.