This when she found the insides of all her cooking utensils neatly soaped; and the sheaf of home-letters in her work-box replaced by cigar-coupons.
One of the workmen threw over his job with noisy blasphemy; when his room above the stables was invaded by stealth and a comic-paper picture of a goat's head substituted for his dead mother's photograph in the well-polished little bronze frame on his bureau.
And so on, all along the line.
The worst and most continuous sufferer from Cyril's loathed presence on the Place was the massive collie, Lad.
The child learned, on the first day of his visit, that it would be well-nigh as safe to play with a handful of dynamite as with Lad's gold-and-white mate, Lady.

Lady did not care for liberties from anyone.
And she took no pains to mask her snappish first-sight aversion to the lanky Cyril.

Her fiery little son, Wolf, was scarce less formidable than she, when it came to being teased by an outsider.

But gallant old Lad was safe game.
He was safe game for Cyril, because Lad's mighty heart and soul were miles above the possibility of resenting anything from so pitifully weak and defenseless a creature as this child.

He seemed to realize, at a glance, that Cyril was an invalid and helpless and at a physical disadvantage.