THE PASSING OF ALFRED.
Alfred is dead and with him has gone John's last efforts at making and training pets. It has simply been one disappointment after another. There was Charles the monkey. Charles could write his own name with a pen and digest the creamiest shaving-stick without making a lather. There was Joey, the billy-goat, such an entertaining fellow, who could pick up and set down anything with his horns from a basket to a dustman. And then there was Livo—immortal Livo. There never was such a down-at-heel and unscrupulous young ruffian of a mongrel terrier as Livo, nor one that more completely convinced people that he was a gentleman of blood and a pure-souled spiritualist.
Of course there were heaps of other pets as well, but just as they seemed about to reach that stage of human intelligence so earnestly desired by their young master they all suddenly died, even as Alfred, the last of a long list, gave up the ghost yesterday.
Alfred was a trout. Not your ordinary fly-jumping kind of trout, because there is never anything ordinary about John's pets. Alfred, for instance, had not lived in water for three months. He simply had no use for the stuff, and, as for jumping at a fly, his nerves were far too good for that sort of thing.
His attachment to John was complete. He would take food from no one else and the presence of his eight-year-old master in the long grass was sufficient to bring him erect on his tail, where he would wag his fins and make strange noises in cordial welcome. In many respects he was the most superior pet John has ever had. He could affect boredom and his exhibition of the glad eye was considered by John's eldest sister to be positively deadly. It is, in fact, true to say that his keen desire to adopt as many human habits as possible often led us to mistake him for one of ourselves.
John, however, was not quite satisfied with his pupil until one bright morning last week when Alfred displayed the first signs of having acquired the Directional Wriggle. Strange as it may sound, this very human trout actually wriggled after John for a distance of five yards. Three days later he pursued his master to the village post-office and beat him by a short gill.
Yesterday, however, Alfred excelled himself. John had left early for the stream, and being in a hurry took advantage of the thin plank crossing. Now the plank is very slippery and had been placed over the spot where the stream is deepest. John crossed it carefully enough, but looking back for a second he suddenly noticed that Alfred was following him. Before he could raise his voice in protest the trout had mounted the plank and was wriggling across it. Then, horror of horrors! in the middle of the plank the wretched fish suddenly lurched, lost its footing, plunged into the water and was drowned.