Fear Nothing

hung on his chair, Roosevelt extracted a dog biscuit shaped like a bone. He held it in the candlelight so that Orson could see it clearly. Between his big thumb and forefinger, the biscuit appeared to be almost as tiny as a trinket from a charm bracelet, but it was in fact a large treat. With ceremonial solemnity, Roosevelt placed it on the table in front of the seat that was reserved for the dog.
        With wanting eyes, Orson followed the biscuit hand. He padded toward the table but stopped short of it. He was being more than usually standoffish.
        From the windbreaker, Roosevelt extracted a second biscuit. He held it close to the candles, turning it as if it were an exquisite jewel shining in the flame, and then he put it on the table beside the first biscuit.
        Although he whined with desire, Orson didn't come to the chair. He ducked his head shyly and then looked up from under his brow at our host. This was the only man into whose eyes Orson was sometimes reluctant to stare.
        Roosevelt took a third biscuit from the windbreaker pocket. Holding it under his broad and oft-broken nose, he inhaled deeply, lavishly, as if savoring the incomparable aroma of the bone-shaped treat.
        Raising his head, Orson sniffed, too.
        Roosevelt smiled slyly, winked at the dog-and then popped the biscuit into his mouth. He crunched it with enormous delight, rinsed it down with a swig of coffee, and let out a sigh of pleasure.
        I was impressed. I had never seen him do this before. “What did that taste like?”
        “Not bad. Sort of like shredded wheat. Want one?”
        “No, sir. No, thank you,” I said, content to sip my coffee.
        Orson's ears were pricked; Roosevelt now had his undivided attention. If this towering, gentle-voiced, giant black human truly enjoyed the biscuits, there might be fewer for any canine who played too hard to get.
        From the windbreaker draped on the back of his chair, Roosevelt withdrew another biscuit. He held this one under his nose, too, and inhaled so expansively that he was putting me in danger of oxygen deprivation. His eyelids drooped sensuously. A shiver of pretended pleasure swept him, almost swelled into a swoon, and he seemed about to fall into a biscuit-devouring frenzy.
        Orson's anxiety was palpable. He sprang off the floor, into the chair across the table from mine, where Roosevelt wanted him, sat on his hindquarters, and craned his neck forward until his snout was only two inches from Roosevelt 's nose. Together, they sniffed the endangered biscuit.
        Instead of popping this one into his mouth, Roosevelt carefully placed it on the table beside the two that were already arranged in front of Orson's seat. “Good old pup.”
        I wasn't sure that I believed in Roosevelt Frost's supposed ability to communicate with animals, but in my opinion, he was indisputably a first-rate dog psychologist.
        Orson sniffed the biscuits on the table.
        “Ah, ah, ah,” Roosevelt warned.
        The dog looked up at his host.
        “You mustn't eat them until I say you may,” Roosevelt told him.
        The dog licked his chops.
        “So help me, pup, if you eat them without my permission,” said Roosevelt, “there will never, ever, ever again be biscuits for you.”
        Orson issued a thin, pleading whine.
        “I mean it, dog,” Roosevelt said quietly but firmly. “I can't make you talk to me if you don't want to. But I can insist that you display a minimum of manners aboard my boat. You can't just come in here and wolf down the canapes as if you were some wild beast.”
        Orson gazed into Roosevelt 's eyes as though trying to judge his commitment to this no-wolfing rule.
        Roosevelt didn't blink.
        Apparently convinced that this was no empty threat, the dog lowered his attention to the three biscuits. He gazed at them with such desperate longing that I thought I ought to try one of the damn things, after all.
        “Good pup,” said Roosevelt.
        He picked up a remote-control device from the table and jabbed one of the buttons on it, although the tip of his finger seemed too large to press fewer than three buttons at once. Behind Orson, motorized tambour doors rolled up and out of sight on the top half of a built-in hutch, revealing two stacks of tightly packed electronic gear gleaming with light-emitting diodes.
        Orson was interested enough to turn