“Oh, father! Could we take him with us?” asked Alice, as she patted Don on his big head. He looked up at her with his big, kind brown eyes.
“Well, yes, I suppose we could keep another dog,” said the man. “Only he is so big he’d have to stay out in the stable, with the horses. You couldn’t have him in the house, as you do Rex.”
“Oh, please let’s take him home!” begged Alice.
“All right,” answered her father with a laugh. “We’ll take the big dog home too,” he said to the pound-keeper.
“I am glad of it,” said the pound-keeper. “I was sorry I had to bring that dog in, for he looks as though he had been in a good home. I’m glad you’re taking him.”
So Don was led out of the pound, and he walked along beside the man, while Alice carried Rex in her arms.
Outside the dog pound was a big automobile. Alice and her father had come in that.
“See, James!” cried Alice to the chauffeur. “I have Rex back again.”
“So I see,” spoke the chauffeur. “Hello, Rex!” and he patted the poodle on the head, for he knew him well.
“Bow wow!” barked Rex. Then to Don he said: “Now we are all right. I’ll have my blue silk cushion to sleep on, and we’ll both have all we want to eat, and good water to drink. Aren’t you glad to come home with me?”
“Yes, indeed I am――and thank you very much,” said Don, in his dog talk, to Rex. “But are we to ride in that auto?” he asked. “I never have been in one, though once one almost ran over me.”
“Of course we are to ride in it,” said Rex. “I hardly ever walk. Jump in!”
“If Squinty, the pig, could only see me now!” thought Don, as he rode away with Rex.
The first thing that happened to Don and Rex, when they got to the place where the poodle dog lived, was that they each had a nice bath. Rex, being so little, had his in the house, but Don got his scrubbing out in the automobile garage, under a hose. And oh! how good it felt――the cool water splashing on him. Then he was dried in the warm sun, and given a good meal.
“Now I am happy again,” thought Don. “But still I would like to go back to the farm, and my little master Bob.”
For several weeks Don lived in the barn back of the house where Rex had his home. Sometimes Don was taken into the house, and allowed to play with Rex, for Rex was very fond of his big dog friend. And often Rex came out to the barn.