“Nolan,” says the head-groom, “some day that dog of yours will give you the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against his natur'.” The head-groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it. As if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing more. But I'd think of her snooping in the gutters, or freezing of nights under the bridges, or, what's worse of all, running through the hot streets with her tongue down, so wild and crazy for a drink, that the people would shout “mad dog” at her, and stone her. Water's so good, that I don't blame the men-folks for locking it up inside their houses, but when the hot days come, I think they might remember that those are the dog-days and leave a little water outside in a trough, like they do for the horses. Then we wouldn't go mad, and the policemen wouldn't shoot us. I had so much of everything I wanted that it made me think a lot of the days when I hadn't nothing, and if I could have given what I had to mother, as she used to share with me, I'd have been the happiest dog in the land. Not that I wasn't happy then, and most grateful to the Master, too, and if I'd only minded him, the trouble wouldn't have come again. But one day the coachman says that the little lady they called Miss Dorothy had come back from school, and that same morning she runs over to the stables to pat her ponies, and she sees me. “Oh, what a nice little, white little dog,” said she; “whose little dog are you?” says she. “That's my dog, miss,” says the Master. “'Is name is Kid,” and I ran up to her most polite, and licks her fingers, for I never see so pretty and kind a lady. “You must come with me and call on my new puppies,” says she, picking me up in her arms and starting off with me. “Oh, but please, Miss,” cries Nolan, “Mr. Wyndham give orders that the Kid's not to go to the kennels.” “That'll be all right,” says the little lady; “they're my kennels too. And the puppies will like to play with him.”