Mick

This is another Tail from our student days, when we spent our precious summers on the Isle of Man.

Mick is a black Labrador, a brilliant gun dog. He lives in an out-house, and is never allowed indoors.

We are down at Ballachrink, shooting dawn and dusk. Les kindly allows us to borrow Mick. The trouble is that when we get in at night, Mick sets off and runs home to Ballachristory.

This is inconvenient. We have to drive to Ballachristory before dawn to collect him. We decide to see if Mick is corruptible, and it turns out that he is very partial to toast and marmalade. This is just as well, since it is all we have in the house.

We return triumphant from our dawn shoot, with partridge. Les arrives in his van looking worried: “Is Mick with you? He did not come home last night.”

Mick is sitting on our sofa, licking marmalade off his whiskers, looking slightly guilty.