SNIP'S STORY.
My name is Snip. You can read it on my collar: though why my master put it there I can't tell; for everybody knows me, and almost everybody is my friend. People stop in the street to pat me; the little children love to have me play with them, because I never snarl and bite; and the butcher round the corner saves me a bone every day. I think butchers are very nice men.
Every morning I go down street to get the newspaper for my master. The bookseller always has it rolled up, waiting for me, and puts it in my mouth; and back I trot as fast as my legs will go. To-day I had a hard time of it; for, just as I got nicely started for home, some bad boys who were playing in the road saw me, and thought it would be fine fun to catch me, and take my paper away.
They ran after me, hooting and yelling; and I was so frightened, that I trembled all over. But I could run faster than they; and they soon gave up the chase. That was not the end, though; for one of them threw a stone after me, which hit me on one of my paws, and so I came home limping. But do you suppose I let the newspaper drop? Not a bit of it.
I have been barking at this door a long time; and yet nobody comes to open it. I wonder where my master is, that he doesn't hear me. Perhaps he is asleep. I am very hungry for my dinner; and I should like to get into the house, and lie down in my corner by the kitchen-fire.
I can push open the garden-gate with my nose; but this door won't move a bit when I put my paws on it. I wonder why dogs can't open doors as well as gates. I am going to bark again. Bow-wow-wow! There! Didn't you hear a footstep? Yes: there comes some one to let me in.
H. B.
