I left Travers to amuse the ladies--he could do no more harm now; and taking the Colonel aside, I seized the opportunity, as we strolled up and down the garden path, to ask his consent to Lilian's engagement to me. He gave it cordially. 'There's not a man in England,' he said, 'that I'd sooner see her married to after to-day. You're a quiet steady young fellow, and you've a good kind heart. As for the money, that's neither here nor there; Lilian won't come to you without a penny, you know. But really, my boy, you can hardly believe what it is to my poor wife and me to see that dog. Why, bless my soul, look at him now! What's the matter with him, eh?' To my unutterable horror I saw that that miserable poodle, after begging unnoticed at the tea-table for some time, had retired to an open space before it, where he was now industriously standing on his head. We gathered round and examined the animal curiously, as he continued to balance himself gravely in his abnormal position. 'Good gracious, John,' cried Mrs. Currie, 'I never saw Bingo do such a thing before in his life!' 'Very odd,' said the Colonel, putting up his glasses; 'never learnt that from _me_.' 'I tell you what I fancy it is,' I suggested wildly. 'You see, he was always a sensitive, excitable animal, and perhaps the--the sudden joy of his return has gone to his head--_upset_ him, you know.' They seemed disposed to accept this solution, and indeed I believe they would have credited Bingo with every conceivable degree of sensibility; but I felt myself that if this unhappy animal had many more of these accomplishments I was undone, for the original Bingo had never been a dog of parts. 'It's very odd,' said Travers, reflectively, as the dog recovered his proper level, 'but I always thought that it was half the _right_ ear that Bingo had lost?' 'So it is, isn't it?' said the Colonel. 'Left, eh? Well, I thought myself it was the right.' My heart almost stopped with terror--I had altogether forgotten that. I hastened to set the point at rest. 'Oh, it _was_ the left,' I said positively; 'I know it because I remember so particularly thinking how odd it was that it _should_ be the left ear, and not the right!' I told myself this should be positively my last lie. '_Why_ odd?' asked Frank Travers, with his most offensive Socratic manner. 'My dear fellow, I can't tell you,' I said impatiently; 'everything seems odd when you come to think at all about it.' 'Algernon,' said Lilian later on, 'will you tell Aunt Mary and Mr. Travers, and--and me, how it was you came to find Bingo? Mr. Travers is quite anxious to hear all about it.' I could not very well refuse; I sat down and told the story, all my own way. I painted Blagg, perhaps, rather bigger and blacker than life, and described an exciting scene, in which I recognised Bingo by his collar in the streets, and claimed and bore him off then and there in spite of all opposition.