"Just so. Torrens told me about the dog when old Solmes came to say good-bye to him, and do a little more penance in sackcloth and ashes. I am using Torrens's words. The old chap made a scene--went down on his knees and burst out crying--and the dog tried to console him. Torrens seemed quite clear about what was passing in the dog's mind." "What did he say the dog meant? Can you remember?" Miss Dickenson was settling down to chat, perceptibly. "Pretty well. Achilles had wished to say that he personally, so far from finding fault with Mr. Solmes for trying to shoot him, fully recognised that he drew trigger under a contract to do so, given circumstances which had actually come about. He would not endeavour to extenuate his own conduct, but submitted that he was entitled to a lenient judgment, on the ground that a hare, the pursuit of which was the indirect cause of the whole mishap, had jumped up from behind a stone.... Well--I suppose I oughtn't to repeat all a profane poet thinks fit to say...." "Please do! Never mind the profanity!" It really was a stimulus to the lady's curiosity. Mr. Pellew repeated the apology which the collie's master had ascribed to him. Achilles had only acted in obedience to Instincts which had been Implanted in him in circumstances for which he was not responsible, and which might, for anything he knew, have been conceived in a spirit of mischief by the Author of all Good. This levity was stopped by a shocked expression on the lady's face. "Well," said the gentleman, "you mustn't blow _me_ up, Miss Dickenson. I am only repeating, as desired, the words of a profane poet. He had apologized, he told me, for what he said, when his sister boxed his ears." "Serve him right. But what was his apology?" "That he owed it to Achilles, who was unable to speak for himself, to lay stress on what he conceived to be the dog's Manichaean views, which he had been most unwillingly forced to infer from his practice of suddenly barking indignantly at the Universe, in what certainly seemed an unprayerful spirit." "It was only Mr. Torrens's nonsense. He wanted to blaspheme a little, and jumped at the opportunity. They are all alike, Poets. Look at Byron and Shelley!" Mr. Pellew, for his own purposes no doubt, managed here to insinuate that he himself was not without a reverent side to his character. These fillahs were no doubt the victims of their own genius, and presumably Mr. Torrens was a bird of the same feather. He himself was a stupid old-fashioned sort of fillah, and couldn't always follow this sort of thing. It was as delicate a claim as he could make to sometimes going to Church on Sunday, as was absolutely consistent with Truth.