"Have him let loose at once, and in future remember, if he comes in
wet and muddy, and chooses to lie on the drawing-room couch, let
him."
The man disappeared, and I walked over to the hearth.
A minute or two later there was a scratching and whining outside the
door, and I went to it and let Nous in.
He bounded over me, licked my face furiously, and scratched
enthusiastically at my shirt front.
He was wet, and his fur laden with mud, as the butler had said, and
my clothes suffered from his demonstrativeness, but his feelings
were of more import than a dress-coat, and I would not have hurt
them by checking his greeting.
"Dear old boy," I said, taking the collar off with which he had been
chained up,--and just then my father came into the room.
"Ah, got back, Victor?"
"Yes," I said, looking up.
"They've rejected your last, eh?" he said at once.
"Yes. Why? Have they sent it? How did you know it was rejected?"
"By your face, my dear boy," answered my father.
"It's odd that these failures knock you up still. You must be
accustomed to them now!"
That was cutting, and it cut.
"One does not easily get accustomed to anything that is against
natural law," I said, coldly.
"Oh! and you mean that it is against the natural law of things that
so brilliant a genius as yourself should be perpetually rejected?"
I nodded.
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