Rats!
"HE has no nose," said my master; "he is a handsome dog, but he has no nose."
This annoyed me very much, for I have a nose – a very long, sharp, black nose. I wear tan boots and gloves, and my coat is a beautiful shiny black.
I am a Manchester terrier, and I fulfil the old instructions for such dogs. I am
Neckèd like a drakè,
Headed like a snakè,
Tailed like a ratte,
And footed like a catte.
And then they said I had no nose.
But Kerry explained to me that my master did not mean to find fault with the shape of my nose, but that what he wanted to be understood was that I had no nose for smelling rats. Kerry has, and he is ridiculously vain of this accomplishment.
"And you have no nose, you know, old boy," said Kerry; "why, you would let the rats run all over you and never know it."
I turned up my nose – my beautiful, pointed, handsome nose – and walked away without a word.
A few weeks afterwards my master brought home with him some white rats. Kerry was out at the time, but my master showed me the rats through the bars of their cage. He also showed me a boot and a stick. Although I have no nose, I was clever enough to put two and two together. Did I mention that there were two rats?
We were not allowed to go in the study, either of us, and my master put the rats there in their cage on the table.
That night, when everybody had gone to bed, I said to Kerry, "I may have no nose, old man, but I smell rats."
Kerry sniffed contemptuously.
"You!" said he, curling himself round in his basket; "I don't believe you could smell an elephant if there were one in the dresser drawer."
I kept my temper. "I am not feeling very well, Kerry," I said gently, "or I would go and see myself. But I am sure there are rats; I smell them plainly; they seem to be in the study."
"Go to sleep," he said; "you're dreaming, old man."
"Why don't you go and see?" I said. "If I didn't feel so very faint, I would go myself."
Kerry got out of his basket reluctantly. "I suppose I ought to go, if you are quite certain," he said; and he went.
In less than a minute he returned to the kitchen, trembling all over with excitement.
"Chappie!" he said; "Chappie!"
"Well?"
"There are rats," he whispered hoarsely; "there are rats in the study."
"Did you go in?" I asked.
"No, you know we're forbidden to go in, but I smelt them quite plainly. I can't smell them at all here," he said regretfully. "What a nose you have got, after all, Chappie!"
"What are you going to do, Kerry?" I asked.
"Why, nothing," he said; "we mustn't go in the study."
"Oh," I said, "rules weren't made for great occasions like this; it's your business to kill rats wherever they are."
And that misguided wire-haired person went up. He got them out of the cage, and killed them.
The next morning, when the master came down, he thrashed Kerry within an inch of his life. He knows I don't touch rats; and, besides, I was so unwell that nobody could have suspected me. And I explained to Kerry that, good as my nose is, I couldn't possibly tell by the smell that the rats were white, and, therefore, sacred. It was not worth while to mention that I had seen them before.
Kerry looks up to me now as a dog with a nose, and I am much happier than formerly. But Kerry is not nearly so keen on rats now. I thought somehow he wouldn't be.
The Tables Turned
WE knew it was a dog, directly the basket was set down in the hall. We heard it moving about inside. We sniffed all round. We asked it why it didn't come out (the basket was tightly tied up with string). "Are you having a good time in there?" said Roy. "Can't you show your face?" said I. "He's ashamed of it," said Roy, waving his long bushy tail. Then he growled a little, and the dog inside growled too; and then, as Roy had an appointment with the butcher at his own back door, I went out to see him home.
"I am so sorry I am going away for Christmas with my master," he said when we parted; "but you must introduce that new dog to me when I come home. We mustn't stand any of his impudence, eh?"
I was sorry Roy was going away, for Roy is my great friend. He always fights the battles for both of us. I daresay I might have got into the way of fighting my own battles, but I never like to interfere with anybody's pleasure, and Roy's chief pleasure is fighting. As for me, I think the delights of that recreation are over-estimated.
When my master came home, he opened the basket, and a dog of Irish family tumbled out, growling and snarling, and hid himself under the sofa. They wasted more biscuits on him than I have ever seen wasted on any deserving dog; and at last they got him out, and he consented to eat some supper. They gave him a much better basket than mine, and we went to bed.
Next morning, the Irish terrier got out of his basket, stretched himself, yawned, and insisted on thrashing me before breakfast.
"But I am a dog of peace," I said; "I don't fight."
"But I do, you see," he answered, "that's just the difference."
I tried to defend myself, but he got hold of one of my feet, and held it up. I sat up, and howled with pain and indignation.
"Have you had enough?" he said, and, without waiting for my answer, proceeded to give me more.
"But I don't fight," I said; "I don't approve of fighting."
"Then I'll teach you to have better manners than to say so," said he, and he taught me for nearly five minutes.
"Now then," he said, "are you licked?"
"Yes," I answered; for indeed I was.
"Are you sorry you ever tried to fight with me?"
"Yes," still seemed to be the only thing to say.
"And do you approve of fighting?"
He seemed to wish me to say "yes," and so I said it.
"Very well, then," he said; "now we'll be friends, if you like. Come along; you have given me an appetite for breakfast."
"Any society worth cultivating about here?" he asked, after the meal, in his overbearing way.
"I have a very great friend who lives next door," I said; "but I don't know whether I should care to introduce you to him."
He showed his teeth, and asked what I meant.
"You see, you might not like him; and, if you didn't like him – but he's a most agreeable dog."
"A good fighter?" asked Rustler.
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."