The man took me into the house, which was just as dirty and untidy as the yard and badly, and tied the string to the leg of a table there. He went into another room for a few minutes and I sat there and shivered until he came back. Then he took off my nice new collar, with its silver name-plate and silver , and slipped a old leather around my neck. He read what it said on the name-plate and then the collar aside.  
“You ought to fetch a good price, old boy, if they give you a collar like that,” he said. “Come on now.”
 
So he led me outdoors again and across to the shed where the bulldog was. When the bulldog saw the man come in he howled and ran out quickly. There were some boxes in one corner of the shed that had bars in front of them and I was put into one of these. Then the man went out and closed the door behind him.
 
It was quite dark in there, and cold and damp too, and there was nothing in the box to lie on, and I was very unhappy. I sat and shivered and whimpered for a long time, and it got darker and darker. No one came to see me. I heard the bulldog prowling about outside and at the door and I heard the man whistle to him once. Then it got quite dark and after a while I cried myself to sleep. But I was too cold to sleep soundly and I was very glad when the light began to come back and I knew that it was morning again.
 
The man brought me two or three bones without much meat on them and a broken dish with some water in it. I didn’t care much for the bones, but wanted the water a good deal. The man left the door open a little when he went out and pretty soon the bulldog came in.
 
“Well,” he said gruffly, “and where’d he pick you up?”
 
I told him.
 
“So you’re one of those pet dogs I’ve heard of,” he . “Lie on a cushion and eat cake, they tell me. Well, you won’t get any cake here. Bones and kicks are all you’ll have now for a while. I know. I’ve lived here four years. Pass out one of those bones. They’re mine by rights, anyway.”
 
I told him he could have them all and pushed them through the bars where he could get them, and he seemed more good-natured after that. He ate them just as though he was half-starved, and and growled over them. He had very bad table manners. After he had chewed them until there was nothing left on them he laid down and we talked.
 
 
He wasn’t really a bad sort of dog at heart, only he had been treated cruelly all his life, kicked and beaten and half-starved. Dogs, you know, are very much like you Two-Legged Folks. Be gentle and kind to us and we will be gentle and kind, too. Treat us crossly and we may grow to be cross and snappy like you. You are the ones we serve, and so it is not strange that we should learn our manners from you. Poor Jim—for that was the bulldog’s name—had had only blows and ugly words ever since he was a and he didn’t know what it was to be well-fed and petted and looked after. He had heard of dogs who had nice homes and kind masters and he pretended to make fun of them and called them “pets,” but I knew very well that he envied them all the time.
 
I asked him what his master would do with me and why he had taken me from my home, and he said that I would be taken to the City and sold. “You’re not the first dog who has been here,” he said. “Every month or so he brings one home with him. I’ve met a lot of them in my time.”
 
“But he has no right to do that,” I said. “If I did a thing like that William would say I was stealing.”
 
“Of course,” said Jim. “He’s a thief. He makes his living by it. He will get twenty or thirty dollars for you, perhaps. He would have sold me long ago if I had been wort............