I DIDN’T see the other dogs until the next day. They came up in the nursery only now and then,—mostly when there wasn’t any fire in the drawing-room or when the mistress was out.

I think she must have been out the next afternoon, and the fire, too, because they came trotting upstairs soon after lunch and came in where I was. I had jumped up in Tommy’s chair and was lying there. I liked to lie in his chair, and someone had laid a cushion on it that morning, so it was soft and warm.

Fifine came over toward the chair and looked at me in a snarly way, and I knew she wanted me to get out of it and let her have it, but I wouldn’t.

Prince Coco sat down close against the radiator. He always chose the hottest place. He yawned, and then he looked over at me in sort of a proud, lazy way.

“Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself with the visitors yesterday,” he said. “Fighting before them all, and upsetting the tea and everything!”

The way he said it made me so mad I couldn’t help growling.

“Perfectly disgraceful,” snarled Fifine. “I never was so ashamed in my life. I’m glad the mistress told them you were Tommy’s dog, and didn’t belong with us.”

I didn’t answer,—just kept up a low growling.

Bijou didn’t say anything. I think he was afraid. I kept watching him, and if he had said anything I was going to jump on him and show him which was the better dog. I was still mad at him for biting me the day before. I think he knew this, for he went over and lay down under the sofa, and then presently he got up again and went out.

Prince Coco kept on mumbling, and I didn’t know whether he was talking to himself or me. “Oh, well! What’s the difference? They’re going away this week, and then it’s good-bye Muffins. You won’t be here long after they go.”

I did wish he would stop talking that way.

A door banged downstairs, and I heard Tommy whistle for me. At once I forgot Prince Coco and all he had been saying. I bounded out of my chair and tore downstairs. There was Tommy waiting for me below. He threw his school-books over on a chair, and then we had a fine romp. We had the rugs all tangled up together and the chairs crooked before we were through.

It was several days before I thought any more of what Prince Coco had said.

Then one morning I heard a bumping sound out in the hall, and I ran out to see what was going on. James was bringing a big leather box down the stairs from the third story. Bijou was out there watching him.“What’s he bringing that box down for?” I asked.

Bijou and I were friendly again now. He was often friendly with me when the other dogs were not there, and I liked him better than the others, even if he had bitten me that time.

“It isn’t a box, it’s a trunk,” said he. “Every time the family is going away James brings the trunks down and Mary put the clothes in them, and then she shuts the trunks and men come and take them away.”

“So bringing down the trunks means people are going away?”

“Yes,” said Bijou.

“The Mistress and the Master, and Tommy, too?”

“Yes.”

That worried me.

James took that trunk into the mistress’s room, and he went up and brought down another and put it in the master’s room, and then he brought still another and put it in Tommy’s room.

He lifted the top of the one in Tommy’s room, and took part of the trunk out and set it on the floor.

I had followed him into Tommy’s room, and after he went away I jumped in the trunk and sniffed about, but I couldn’t tell much about it except that it smelled of Tommy’s clothes.

After a while Mary came into the room. When she saw me she said, “Get out of that, Muffins. You’re too curious.”

I jumped out of the trunk and sat down by it and watched her. She went over and opened Tommy’s closet and his bureau drawers, and began taking out his clothes and putting them in the trunk. After a while she had it almost full. I sat and watched her. Then she went out of the room for something.

As soon as she had gone I got up and looked into the trunk again. All those clothes of Tommy’s were going, and if I were in the trunk I would go, too.

Right away I knew what to do. I jumped into the trunk and scratched up some of the clothes and got down in a corner and put my head down underneath them, and then I lay there and kept perfectly still.

Soon Mary came back into the room. She moved about and shut a bureau drawer, and then she came over to the trunk. I could hear her.

“Tsch!” she said. “Whoever has been at this trunk!” Then she lifted something off my head. “Well I never!” she cried.

I didn’t move, except that I couldn’t help shaking. I just lay still and pretended I wasn’t there.

Tommy must have come home, for I heard his whistle, but I only snuggled down still further in the trunk, and hoped Mary would go away and forget about me.