PRACTISE TRUE POLITENESS.
The next time Aunt Fanny came she had a funny and rather mischievous twinkle in her eyes. She did not say a word, while she unfolded her manuscript but quietly read out the Pop-gun printed above, and then said her story was called by the comical title of
THE DOG’S DINNER-PARTY.
The children looked at each other, wondering what was coming, then fastened their eager eyes on the reader, who began as follows:
Once upon a time there lived a funny, bustling, little old gentleman, who thought that dogs, horses, cats, and monkeys, ought to live just as he did; that is, first and foremost, to behave with perfect politeness, learn to read and write, sit at the table and eat their meals with knives and forks, and sleep in French bedsteads, all tucked up warm. He even insisted on their wearing clothes and patent leather boots, and they ran clattering about the house on their hind legs, with trousers and coats on, and their tails dangling out behind, like a pocket handkerchief out of a pocket.
The little bustling old gentleman was a bachelor. He had tried about twenty-nine times to get married, but the ladies, one and all, insisted that the dogs, cats, and monkeys must be turned out of the house, if they consented to come in, which was very disagreeable and unreasonable, and made the old gentleman so mad, he said to himself he would see them to Jericho first; so making each one in turn a very low bow, for he was the very pink of politeness, he took himself off, and that was the last of getting married.
So his family consisted of four fine dogs, six beautiful cats, eight comical monkeys, one fat cook, and one fat coachman, two thin housemaids, and nobody knows how many grooms and footmen—and they all lived together, a great deal happier than Barnum’s happy family, and what do you suppose was the reason? Why, they were taught by the bustling little old gentleman to be perfectly polite. I forgot to tell you that his name was Lord Chesterfield.