At last I got the puppy home. I imagine I had more
pertinacity than the average Folk, or else I should not
have succeeded. They laughed at me when they saw me
lugging the puppy up to my high little cave, but I did
not mind. Success crowned my efforts, and there was
the puppy. He was a plaything such as none of the Folk
possessed. He learned rapidly. When I played with him
and he bit me, I boxed his ears, and then he did not
try again to bite for a long time.
I was quite taken up with him. He was something new,
and it was a characteristic of the Folk to like new
things. When I saw that he refused fruits and
vegetables, I caught birds for him and squirrels and
young rabbits. (We Folk were meat-eaters, as well as
vegetarians, and we were adept at catching small game.)
The puppy ate the meat and thrived. As well as I can
estimate, I must have had him over a week. And then,
coming back to the cave one day with a nestful of
young-hatched pheasants, I found Lop-Ear had killed the
puppy and was just beginning to eat him.
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