CHAPTER XXXI
A post card from Davis to Collins explained the reasons for Michael’s return. “He sings too much to suit my fancy,” was Davis’s way of putting it, thereby unwittingly giving the clue to what Collins had vainly sought, and which Collins as unwittingly failed to grasp. As he told Johnny:
“ From the looks of the beatings he’s got no wonder he’s been singing. That’s the trouble with these animal people. They don’t know how to take care of their property. They hammer its head off and get grouched because it ain’t an angel of obedience.—Put him away, Johnny. Wash him clean, and put on the regular dressing wherever the skin’s broken. I give him up myself, but I’ll find some place for him in the next bunch of dogs.”
Two weeks later, by sheerest accident, Harris Collins made
