Pussy and Doggy Tales

I scratched my ear with my hind foot, and pretended to think.

"Oh, I see he's not," said Rustler contemptuously; "well, you shall introduce him to me directly he comes back."

Rustler's overbearing and disagreeable manners so upset me that I was quite thin when, at the end of the week, Roy came home. I told him my troubles at once.

"Bring your Rustler along," he said grandly, "and introduce him to me."

So I did. Rustler came along with his ears up, and his miserable tail in the air. Roy lay by his kennel looking the image of serenity and peacefulness. To judge by his expression, he might not have had a tooth in his head.

Rustler stood with his feet as far apart as he could get them, and put his head on one side.

"I have heard so much about you, Mr. What's-your-name," he said, "that I have come to make a closer acquaintance."

"Delighted, I'm sure," said Roy, who has splendid manners.

"If you will get on your legs," said Rustler rudely, "I will tell you what I think of you."

Roy got on his legs, still looking very humble, and the next minute he had Rustler by the front foot, and was making him sit down and scream just as Rustler had made me. It was a magnificent fight.

"Have you had enough?" said Roy, and then gave him more without waiting for an answer.

"I don't want to fight any more," said Rustler at last; "I am sorry I spoke."

"Then I'll teach you to have more pluck than to own it," said Roy.

When he had taught him for some time, he said, "Are you licked?"

"Yes," said Rustler, glaring at me out his uninjured eye.

"Are you sorry you tried to fight with me?"

"Yes."

"Will you promise to leave my little friend here alone?"

"Yes."

Then Roy let him go. We shook tails all round, and Rustler and I went home.

"Poor Rustler," I said, "I know exactly how you feel."

"You little humbug," he said, with half a laugh – for he is not an ill – natured fellow when you come to know him – "you managed it very cleverly! and I'm not one to bear malice; but, I say, your friend is A1."

We are now the most united trio, and Roy and Rustler have licked all the other dogs in the neighbourhood.

A Noble Dog

ROVER would go into the water fast enough for a bathe or a swim, but he would not bring anything out. The children used to throw in sticks, and Rover and I used to bound in together; but I would bring the stick back, while he swam round and round, enjoying himself.

I am not vain, but I could not help feeling how much superior I was to such a dog as Rover. He is a prize Newfoundland, and I am only a humble retriever of obscure family.

So one day I said to him —

"Why don't you fetch the sticks out when the children throw them in?"

"I don't care about sticks," he said.

"But it's so grand and clever to be able to fetch them out."

"Is it?" he answered.

"I know it is, for the children tell me so.

"Do they?" he said.

"I wonder you are not ashamed," I went on, a little nettled by his meekness, "never to do anything useful. I should be, if I were you."

"Ah," he said, "but you see you are not. Good night."

We used to spend a great deal of time by the river. The children loved to play there, and we dogs were always expected to go with them.

One day, as I was lying asleep on the warm grass by the river bank, I heard a splash. I jumped in, but there was no stick, only one of the children floating down on the stream, and screaming whenever her head came from under the water.

I thought it was a new kind of game, not very interesting, so I swam out again; and just as I was shaking the water out of my ears, I heard another great flop, and there was Rover in the water, holding on to the child's dress. He pulled her out some ten yards down the stream; and oh! if you could have seen the fuss that the master and mistress and the rest of the children made of that black and white spotted person!

"Why, Rover," I said afterwards, when we had got home and were talking it over, "whatever made you think that the child wanted to be pulled out of the water?"

"It's my business to pull people out of the water," he said.

"But," I urged, "I always thought you were too stupid to understand things."

"Did you?" he said, turning his mild eyes on me.

"Why didn't you explain to me that you – "

"My dear dog," he said, "I never think it worth while to fetch sticks out of the water, and I never think it worth while to explain things to stupid people."

The Dyer's Dog

SHE was beautiful, with a strange unearthly beauty. She had a little black nose. Her eyes were small, but bright and full of charm. Her ears were long and soft, and her tail curled like one of the ostrich plumes in the window of the dyer with whom she lived.

I have met many little dogs with noses as charming, and eyes as bright, and tails as curly; but never one who, like my Bessie, was a rich, deep pink all over.

I lived with a baker then. I was sitting on his doorstep when she first delighted my eyes. I ran across the road to give her good morning. She seemed pleased to see me. We had a little chat about the weather and the other dogs in the street, and about buns, and rats, and the vices of the domestic cat.

Her manners and her conversation were as bright and charming as her eyes. Before we parted, we had made an appointment for the next afternoon, and as I said good-bye, I ventured to ask —

"How is it, lady, that you are of such a surpassingly beautiful colour?"