As time went on, Tim began to place great reliance on the dog's trustworthiness, and to look upon him as quite equal to another boy. He knew that he had only to hold up his ringer and say, "Watch, Moses!" and the dog's vigilant attention was secure; trusting in this, therefore, he felt it by no means so necessary as formerly to be very watchful himself, and began to take life much more easily. In the evening, when Joshua stopped to deliver a parcel, Tim would rouse himself from a comfortable nap, and just murmur, "Watch, Moses!" then woe to anyone who ventured too near Moses and his property. Now this division of labour, or rather this shifting of responsibility on to another's shoulders, had its bad results, for while the dog improved every day in sharpness and conscientious performance of duty, the boy did the opposite. Tim became somewhat careless and lazy, and though Joshua knew nothing of it, he did not really fill his post half so well as before the dog came; he allowed things to get slack. Now, whether one is a van-boy or a lord-chancellor this is bad, for slackness leads to neglect, and neglect to worse things. You shall hear what happened in Tim's case. One evening the carrier's cart was standing in a little back street in the Borough waiting for Joshua; he had matters to settle, he told Tim, which might take him an hour or more, and he added: "Look alive, now, for it's a nasty neighbourhood to be standing about in, and there's some smallish parcels in the cart easy made off with. Don't you let your eye off 'em." Tim promised, and, taking his seat on the edge of the cart with his legs swinging, whistled to Moses, who was examining the neighbourhood in an interested manner; he at once jumped up beside his master and assumed a gravely watchful and responsible air. It was not an amusing street, but poor and squalid, full of small lodging-houses, and little dingy shops; very few people were about, and in spite of Joshua's warning no one seemed even to notice the carrier's cart. Presently there walked slowly by, whistling carelessly, a boy about Tim's own age; he was quite respectably, though poorly dressed, and wore his cap very much on one side with an air of smartness which Tim thought becoming. He stopped and looked at the boy and the dog, and they looked at him, Moses ready to be suspicious, and Tim to be conversational if required. For some minutes the group remained in silent contemplation, then the new-comer said inquiringly: "Fer dog?" "Ah," said Tim, nodding his head. "Up to snuff, ain't he?" said the other boy. Tim nodded again, this time in a more friendly manner. "Wot's his name?" "Moses." "Yer give it him?" "Ah." "Where's yer boss?" (meaning master). "Yonder," with a backward movement of the head.