“‘Missis is very clean,’ she said; ‘she will likely give you a bath first thing.’
“Missis did wash me that very day. First she spread a lot of newspapers on the kitchen floor. Then she set a tub on them and filled it half full of warm water. I was ordered to step into the tub, which I did very gingerly, and
then the dressmaker sopped me all over with a cloth covered with carbolic acid soapsuds.
“I must confess that although I liked the idea of being clean and getting rid of some of my fleas, the bath was a sad ordeal. I thought I should scream when the dressmaker wrapped an end of the towel round her finger and poked it inside my ears. Persons should be very careful how they wash dogs’ ears. However, she was pretty gentle, and I merely groaned and did not howl or yell, as I wished to do. Finally she poured lukewarm rinsing water over me, and my bath was done. She wrapped me in a blanket and put me under the kitchen stove. I felt terribly for a while. My wet hair was torture to me, but presently I began to get warm, my hair dried, and I became quite happy.
“Was it possible that I, a little neglected dog, was lying clean and dry under a nice hot stove, and with a comfortable feeling inside me, and not my usual ache for good food?
“I licked one of my paws sticking out from under the blanket, a paw that looked so strangely white and clean, and I said to myself, ‘I must always stay with this good woman.’
“Alas! the very next day such a sick, dreadful
feeling came over me, that I told the cat I must run away.
“‘You are a simpleton,’ she said crossly. ‘You don’t know when you are well off. Could anything be nicer than this quiet house—the master gone all day and so stupid and staggering when he comes home that he gives no trouble?’
“I said nothing, and she went on, ‘And mistress sewing so quietly and giving us regular meals. Then if you wish to take a walk we have a nice back yard with a fence all round it, and no other yard near us and if you wish to go further than that, we have that fine large field where they dump the ashes from the next town. I tell you, the place is ideal.’