THE HUNDRED-AND-THIRTEENTH PAGE

Somehow, I think it would have been easier to handle the situation if the dog had died. I could have rolled him on to a rug in the manner of Shaw’s Cleopatra, dragged the carcass outside, and rolled it down the hill. I didn’t fancy this process for the living flesh. Sleeping dogs don’t need nourishment, so he seemed to be a pretty cheap date.

He seemed to have no urgencies through the evening, though I went upstairs to bed with some anxiety: less the notion that suddenly in the middle of the night, he would revert to feral form, bound upstairs, and tear asunder my frail flesh than the notion that he observe his nocturnal toilet on some of the Mcs and Macs.

When I came down the stairs the next morning, he stood patiently without whimper at the door. A cursory scan of the room revealed that he had been a swell dog with better social graces than the children of most of my friends.

I opened the door and he trotted out to the front yard, where he discreetly made his deposit under a juniper. He looked up as if to see if I had shut the door on him. When he discovered that it was open, he came back in and lay down in his chosen location on the carpet. There was no indication of hunger. When did he eat? Did he eat? He was either the laziest dog in creation or was suffering from a unique case of canine Epstein-Barr. Again, the dog slept.