I could see that Brownlee was worried, and as day followed day without any return of Fluff, Murchison and I tried to cheer him up, showing him how much better we all slept while Fluff was away; but it did not cheer up poor Brownlee. He had set his faith on that dog, and the dog had deceived him. We all became anxious about Brownlee's health--he moped around so; and just when we began to be afraid he was going into a decline he cheered up, and came over as bright and happy as a man could be.
“I told you so!” he exclaimed joyfully, as soon as he was inside my gate. “And it makes me ashamed of myself that I didn't think of it the moment I saw Fluff start off. You will never see that dog again.”
I told Brownlee that that was good news, anyway, even if it did upset his law of scared dogs; but he smiled a superior smile.
“Disprove nothing!” he said. “It proves my law. Didn't I say in the first place that the time a dog would be gone was in inverse ratio to the number of guns? Well, the inverse ratio to no guns is infinite time--that is how long Fluff will be gone; that is how long he will run. Why, that dog will never stop running while there is any dog left in him. He can't help it--it is the law of scared dogs.”
“Do you mean to say,” I asked him, “that that dog will run on and on forever?”
“Exactly!” said Brownlee proudly. “As long as there is a particle of him left he will keep on running. That is the law.”
Maybe Brownlee was right. I don't know. But what I would like to know is the name of some one who would like a dog that looks like Fluff, and is his size, and that howls like him and that answers to his name. A dog of that kind returned to Murchison's house a long time before infinity, and I would like to get rid of him. Brownlee says it isn't Fluff; that his law couldn't be wrong, and that this is merely a dog that resembles Fluff. Maybe Brownlee is right, but I would like to know some one that wants a dog with a richly melodious voice.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of That Pup, by Ellis Parker Butler