Part 4

Then Mr. Bonelli came in, and Tommy put me down and gave Mr. Bonelli an envelope. “Father said to give you this,” he said.

Mr. Bonelli opened the envelope and took out a piece of paper and looked at it, and Mrs. Bonelli looked at it, too, and they both seemed pleased, and Mr. Bonelli said, “That is all right; and please thank your father for me.”

Then they both said good-bye to me, and Mrs. Bonelli took me up and kissed me, and I licked her cheek, but I was so happy I barked and squirmed, and she had to put me down, for now I somehow knew that I was to go with Tommy, and be his little dog again, and I wanted to be down where I could jump on him if I chose, and follow close at his heels.

I was close at his heels when he went out to the automobile again, and when he opened the door I jumped in before he did, I was so afraid I might be left behind.

William seemed glad to see me. He said, “Hello, Muffins! So you’re coming back to us, are you?” And I barked and barked till Tommy told me to be quiet.

Everyone seemed glad to see me at home, too, and even the maid smiled and stooped to pat me, and Bijou came up and put his nose to mine and sniffed at me in a friendly way.

There had been great changes in the house since I was there. Prince Coco was gone, and Fifine was gone. Bijou told me what had become of them. Prince Coco had eaten so much that he got sick, and had been sent away. He always had eaten too much. And Fifine had had five little puppies, so she had been sent away to the gardener out in the country.

So now Bijou and I were the only dogs in the house, and Bijou was very friendly with me all the time. He said he had wanted to be friendly before, and to play and have some fun with me, only he was ashamed to before the other dogs.

I couldn’t play with him so _very_ much even now, though, because when Tommy was home I had to play with him the most.

I didn’t know that I would ever see Mr. Bonelli again, but I did. He came to the house several times. What he came for was to show Tommy how to put me through my tricks.

The first time he came he brought a little whip just like his own for Tommy, and he brought a little barrel striped red, white and blue, and it was my own little barrel that I used to act on. There were one or two tricks I couldn’t do at home because we hadn’t the things, like the jumping-board act and the fire act, but Mr. Bonelli showed Tommy how to put me through almost all the others. Tommy was pleased, and so was I. I grinned and grinned.

And now I was allowed to go any place in the house that I wanted to, they were all so proud of me. I could even go into the drawing-room and sleep on the chairs if I wished to, and sometimes when there were visitors Tommy used to take me in and make me go through my tricks, and the people laughed and I grinned, and the ladies gave me pieces of cake.

Prince Coco I never saw again. He never came back from the place they had sent him to; but Fifine came back after a while, and when she saw how everybody liked me she liked me, too, and I was very happy. But Tommy was the one I loved--oh, ever so much better than all the rest of them together, for I was his little dog, and I was called Muffins again because we liked that name and he had given it to me. First Smarty with Mr. O’Grady, and then Muffins with Tommy, and then Master Grineo with Mr. Bonelli, and now for always Tommy’s own little Muffins again.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.