I was in the midst of this sombre occupation, with no companion but my angry reflections and no witness but Dix, who was plainly aware that something unusual was going on and showed his intense anxiety, in the only method that dull humanity has yet learned to catalogue as Dog-talk: by moving around, wagging his stump of a twist-tail and making odd, uneasy sounds and movements. His evident anxiety about me presently attracted my attention, and I began to think what I should do with him. I knew old Mrs. Upshur would take and care for him as she would for anything of mine; but Dix, though the best tempered of canines, had his standards, which he lived up to like a gentleman, and he brooked no insolence from his inferiors or equals and admitted no superiors. Moreover, he needed out-door exercise as all sound creatures do, and this poor, old decrepit Mrs. Upshur could not give him. I discarded for one reason or another my many acquaintances, and gradually Jeams took precedence in my mind and held it against all reasoning. He was drunken and worthless--he would possibly, at times, neglect Dix, and at others, would certainly testify his pride in him and prove his confidence by making him fight; but he adored the dog and he feared me somewhat. As I wavered there was a knock and Jeams walked in. He was dressed in my long frock coat and his large, gray hat was on the back of his head--a sure sign that he was tight, even had not his dishevelled collar and necktie and his perspiring countenance given evidence of his condition. As he stood in the door, his hand went up to his hat; but at sight of the room, he dropped it before he could reach the hat and simply stared at me in blank amazement. "Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered. [Illustration: "Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered.] "Packing up." "Where you goin'?" "Going away." "When you comin' back?" "Never." "What! Well, damned if I ain' gwine wid you, then." The tone was so sincere and he was evidently so much in earnest that a lump sprang into my throat. I turned away to keep him from seeing that I was moved, and it was to keep him still from finding it out, that I turned on him with well feigned savageness as he entered the room. "You look like going with me, don't you! You drunken scoundrel! Take your hat off, sir"--for in his confusion he had wholly forgotten his manners. They now came back to him. "Ixcuse me--Cap'n" (with a low bow). "Ixcuse me, suh. I al'ays removes my hat in the presence of the ladies and sech distinguished gent'mens as yourself, suh; but, Cap'n----" "Drunken rascal!" I muttered, still to hide my feeling. "Cap'n--I ain' drunk--I'll swear I ain' had a drink not in--" He paused for an appropriate term and gave it up. "--Not in--I'll swear on a stack of Bibles as--as high as Gen'l Washin's monument--you bring it heah--is you got a Bible? You smell my breath!" "Smell your breath! I can't smell anything but your breath. Open that window!"