At last Zip managed to get his leg loose and he was working on the plug in his mouth and not watching Peter-Kins when he had the surprise of his life by getting a full dipper of water thrown all over him, for the monkey had dipped it from the pail of water on the table.
The sudden twist Zip gave his head when the water hit him full force, loosened the cotton in his mouth, and out it flew. With a bound Zip was now on the chair, then on the table, snapping and barking, while the monkey was trying to hit him with the empty dipper, when the kitchen door unexpectedly opened and in the doorway stood Miss Belinda. Without a second's thought Zip jumped past her and ran for dear life toward home, never stopping to look back even once until he was safe in his own barnyard, standing beside the watering trough preparatory to jumping in and washing the eggs off his coat.
Again his encounter with the monkey had been unsatisfactory, and as for what poor Miss Belinda thought when she saw the mess in her nice clean kitchen it is beyond words to tell.
CHAPTER X
Zip's Curiosity Is His Undoing
About a week after Zip's last visit to Miss Belinda's, he was out on one of his midnight prowls, about which the doctor had scolded him time and time again. In fact, he had forbidden him to leave the yard at night, warning him that some day he would be shot while poking around in other people's back yards, or that he would be poisoned by eating some meat that had been prepared purposely for stray cats or dogs. But Zip thought he was smart enough not to get caught, and he did not believe that anyone could put poison on meat and he not be able to smell it.
So this night he went with a rat terrier, a friend of his, down into a poor quarter of the town, where they often went to kill rats, just for the fun of it and to see who could kill the most.
To-night there seemed to be no rats in sight, and while nosing around to get on the track of some, Zip smelt meat and soon came upon a small piece of fresh, juicy beefsteak, which he gobbled down without a thought. As he swallowed the last bit, he thought he detected a queer taste to it, and the thought flashed through his mind, "I have been poisoned! I might have known no one would throw away so good a piece of meat as that without a purpose. That meat was prepared for some cat, dog or rat to eat and die. Oh, my! I am beginning to have fearful pains in my stomach now and I feel myself beginning to swell already! Rats," he called, for that was his friend's nickname, "I've eaten a piece of meat with rat poison on it, and I must get home before I swell up so I can't walk at all. If I am able to get to the doctor, he will help me, I know."