"I should not care to rear such a common kind of dog as that," observed Steenie, who prided himself on being a dog-fancier. "If he were a King Charles spaniel now—" "Or a pug or a poodle," interrupted the farmer; "I should not consider him worth the rearing. I care for use, not for show." "Your favourite does not cost you much, I'll be bound!" said Steenie Steers, with a saucy laugh. "Trusty costs me nothing," answered Macalpine, "for he is content with a few bones, and fairly earns what he gets. But a friend of mine once reared a puppy that would, perhaps, be a puppy just to your taste. Plenty of care and pains she bestowed on the useless creature, and stuffed it with food more than enough. I consider that much of that good feeding was downright waste, seeing what the puppy was to turn out, and that my poor friend really stinted herself to pamper her pet." "Did the creature devour so much, then?" inquired young Steers. "Why, he must have gobbled up, during his training,—let me see—let me see," and Macalpine rubbed his shaggy head to help out his calculations,—"the pet must have gobbled up as good as three hundred big legs of mutton!" "I say!" exclaimed Steenie, in much amazement. "Your friend's pet must have been no pup, but a lion, and one with a monstrous appetite, too! Such a brute as that would soon eat his mistress out of house and home." "He did not eat all the mutton in a day—or a week—or a month; he took his time about it," said the farmer, with a low chuckling laugh. "But my friend's hungry pet did not live on mutton alone; we must add to the meat some three hundred pounds of fresh butter!" "A dainty dog!" exclaimed Steenie. "And not much less than a thousand loaves of white bread," said Macalpine "with tubs of milk, and casks of beer, and I don't know how many plum-cakes, seed-cakes, iced cakes, and all sorts of sweeties besides!" "You are cracking a joke on me, uncle," said Steenie. "I'll answer for it that your friend's pet was never a puppy at all." "I could not answer for it that he is not one now, and a very useless puppy, and a very ungrateful puppy," cried the farmer, rising from his seat. "There, I see my sister coming," he added, as he looked through the open door-way; "Trusty, you and I will go and meet her." Trusty, ever ready, sprang up and followed his master. Steenie's face had grown exceedingly red at the words of Macalpine; the boy bit hard the silver tip of his cane. He could now see clearly enough what his uncle's meaning had been. Steenie himself was the idle, ungrateful puppy, that, after having been fed for ten long years on his kind aunt's bounty, had made no kind of return for all the care and love which she had lavished upon him.