CHAPTER X
CHANG, MY CHOW
His first appearance--Adventures and mishaps--Companions in Hospital--Chang goes to Church--Facing the enemy.
Among all the reminiscences of my life in Japan I think those in which my Chinese chow dog played a part are perhaps the most vivid in my memory.
We had some good times together, Chang and I, and I fear the chief blame lies at his mistress’s door for not training him up in the way he should go. But who can teach a chow what he doesn’t want to learn? A cleverer person than I.
How well I remember Chang’s first appearance on the scene--a Sunday afternoon in Tokio. Enter Yami, very hot and agitated, holding a struggling yellow ball in his arms. Here was the much-longed-for chow puppy, sent me by a friend from Hong Kong. What a queer little chap he was, with his bright brown eyes and black tongue. Exceedingly dirty, too, I am sorry to have to confess, in spite of several baths on his arrival at Yokohama, to which I was told he much objected.
As Chang grew up he became the very finest chow dog seen out of China. What high-class specimens may be reserved for the special consumption of the yellow-jacketed and peacock-befeathered Chinese mandarin I know not, but in the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ he decidedly held his own.
THREE FRIENDS (p. 127).