The other day, he sat scribbling for a
long time with a pencil and paper, and when he had done it, he threw the
sketch to me and said, "There, Toots, look at that, and you will see
what became of your friend!"
It was civilly meant, and I append the sketch for the sake of those whom
it may inform. I do not understand pictures myself.
Those boots have a strange fascination for me now. I sit for hours by
the mouth of the one where he went in and never came back. Not the
faintest squeak from its recesses has ever stirred the sensitive hairs
of my watchful ear. He must be starving, but not a nibble of the leather
have I heard. I doze, but I am ever on the alert. Nightmares
occasionally disturb me. I fancy I see him, made desperate by hunger,
creep anxiously to the mouth of the boot, pricking his tagged ear. Once
I had a terrible vision of his escaping, and of his tail as it vanished
round the corner.
But these are dreams. He has never returned, I suspect that the truth
is, that he had a fit from fright, in the toe of the boot, and is dead.
Some day Terence will shake out his skeleton.
It grows very cold. This place is full of draughts, and the floor is
damp.
He _must_ be dead.
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