There was cheese. There is no longer cheese. I should like to discuss the matter.
I should begin by noting that I did not plan this. I am not a planner. I am, by my own admission, a quiet boy who prefers the garden to the kitchen and does not generally seek out incident.
The cheese was on a plate, on a low table, unattended. I passed by on my way to the back door, where I had been intending to watch a sparrow. I paused. I paused longer than I meant to. I thought: I shall not. I thought it firmly. I thought it again. And yet.
The cheese is gone. I ate it. It was a small wedge of something soft and pale — possibly a brie, possibly not. I was rather past caring by then. I regret it, on reflection, in approximately the way one regrets a kindness one did not deserve.
I told the Bald Man. Or rather, I went and stood beside his chair and looked at him in the way I look at him when something has happened, and he understood the entire matter without my having to bark, which is just as well, because I would not have. He sighed. He said, “Oh, Harvey.” He scratched the place behind my ear that he knows about. And that was the punishment. It was sufficient. I felt it. I felt it considerably.
I did not tell Winnie. Winnie would have wanted in. The cheese was, by then, beyond sharing.
I shall, of course, do it again. I am a quiet boy. Quiet boys also have needs.