Charlie and His Puppy Bingo

by Helen Hill; Violet Maxwell

Charlie and Topsy and Bingo had lots of fun playing together and, when Charlie was playing with them, Topsy and Bingo were always good; but sometimes, when Topsy and Bingo played alone together, they were as bad as bad could be and got into all kinds of mischief—especially Bingo.

Yes, Bingo could think up the naughtiest things to do! He liked to dig in the flower beds and bury bits of sticks that he pretended were bones. That was lots of fun for Bingo but very bad for the flowers! And he liked to go into people’s bedrooms and hide their bedroom slippers so that they could not find them anywhere.

But most of all he liked to eat up the carpet in the dining room. Oh, my goodness! What fun Bingo did have with that carpet! He would hold one corner in his mouth and he would waggle his tail and scrabble with his paws and he would growl and growl and he would chew at that carpet till the wonder was he did not chew it all up.

Yes, Bingo thought up all these naughty things to do when he was playing by himself and he also tried to imitate the things that Topsy did.

Topsy was very fond of climbing, and he could climb beautifully. He hardly ever knocked anything down. No indeed! Topsy could jump straight on to the mantelpiece and walk among the ornaments and not knock a single one down!

Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie did not like Topsy to do this. They were afraid that some day he might throw something down—but he never did. Bingo thought that he would love to be able to climb like that. He looked at Topsy with admiring eyes and this made Topsy all the more anxious to show off.

Sometimes Topsy would climb up the dining room curtains all the way to the top, and that made Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie very angry, because his little sharp claws made scratches on the curtains. Then they would shake them hard so that Topsy would have to climb down. He would not learn that he must not do it again.

For Topsy loved to show off. He knew that he could climb better than anybody in the house and so he wanted to do it all the time, and the more he did it the more Bingo wanted to show Topsy that he could climb as well. But of course he could not.

One reason was that Bingo could not jump as high as Topsy. A little dog never can jump as high as a kitten. They are not made that way. So when Bingo wanted to climb he had to scramble up with his paws and he always knocked against something or other which would come down with a crash and a bang and somebody would say, “Oh, you bad Bingo, you have broken something again!” It was very discouraging.

One day Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie had gone out. They had gone downtown to do some shopping so they had decided to leave Bingo at home, as one cannot very well take a little dog into a department store.