Aunt Kate got me out of my wet clothes as quickly as possible , put me away to bed in hot blankets and dosed me with ginger tea . I slept like a top and felt none the worse for my experience the next morning . At the breakfast table Uncle Richard scarcely spoke . But , just as we finished , he said abruptly to Ernest , `` I 'm not going to sell Laddie . You and the dog saved Ned 's life between you , and no dog who helped do that is ever going to be sold by me . Henceforth he belongs to you . I give him to you for your very own . '' `` Oh , Mr. Lawson ! '' said Ernest , with shining eyes . I never saw a boy look so happy . As for Laddie , who was sitting beside him with his shaggy head on Ernest 's knee , I really believe the dog understood , too . The look in his eyes was almost human . Uncle Richard leaned over and patted him . `` Good dog ! '' he said . `` Good dog ! '' At Five O'Clock in the Morning Fate , in the guise of Mrs. Emory dropping a milk-can on the platform under his open window , awakened Murray that morning . Had not Mrs. Emory dropped that can , he would have slumbered peacefully until his usual hour for rising -- a late one , be it admitted , for of all the boarders at Sweetbriar Cottage Murray was the most irregular in his habits . `` When a young man , '' Mrs. Emory was wont to remark sagely and a trifle severely , `` prowls about that pond half of the night , a-chasing of things what he calls ` moonlight effecks , ' it ai n't to be wondered at that he 's sleepy in the morning . And it ai n't the convenientest thing , nuther and noways , to keep the breakfast table set till the farm folks are thinking of dinner .
But them artist men are not XXXXX other people , say what you will , and allowance has to be made for them .
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