Pussy and Doggy Tales Part 7

"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 n.o.ble 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 gra.s.s 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 surpa.s.singly beautiful colour?"

"It is natural to our family," she said, tossing her pretty ears. "My mother was the Royal Crimson Dog at the Court of the King of India."

I bowed with deep respect and withdrew, for I heard them calling me at home.

The next day I looked for my beautiful pink-coloured lady, but I looked in vain. Instead, a dog of a bright sky-blue, with a yellow ribbon round its neck, sat in the sun on the dyer's doorstep. Yet, could I be mistaken? That nose, those ears, that feathery tail, those bright and beaming eyes!

I went across. She received me with some embarra.s.sment, which disappeared as I talked gaily of milk and guinea pigs, and the habits of the cats'-meat man. Before we parted I said--

"You have changed your dress."

"Yes," she said, "it's so common and vulgar to wear always one colour."

"But I thought"--I hesitated--"that your mother was the Royal Crimson Dog at the Court of----"

"So she was," replied the lady promptly, "but my father was the well-known sky-blue terrier at the Crystal Palace Dog Show. I resemble both my parents."

I retired, fascinated by her high breeding and graceful explanations.

Through my dreams that night wandered a long procession of blue and crimson dogs.

The next day, when I hurried to keep the appointment she had been good enough to make with me, I found her a deep purple. Again I concealed my surprise, while we talked of subjects of common interest, of dog-collars and chains and kennels, of biscuits, bones, and the outrage of the muzzling order; and at last I said--

"You have changed your dress again. Your mother was the Royal----"

"Oh, don't," she said, "it's so tiresome to keep repeating things. My father was red and my mother was blue, and I myself, as you see, am purple. Don't you know that crimson and blue make purple? Any child with a shilling box of paints could have told you that."