NO COLLAR, NO CRUMBS.
It is dangerous business, this waking up a dog with your boot. You may take him in a time when not in the mood for permitting such familiar demonstrations.
Perhaps he may be hungry, and since the dogs devoured poor painted Jezebel, their weakness for human flesh will occasionally make itself manifest. I, who have been thrice vaccinated by a canine tooth (and it took each time, too), speak knowingly on this subject.
Now, as I gaze out upon the street, I mark the slow approach of the pound-keeper’s dingy cart. Ever and anon it comes to a sudden halt, and skirmishers are deployed on each side to search the alley-ways and lanes along the route. Hark! what cry is this that comes quavering forth from that shaky prison? A bark? No, never a bark, but a quavering bleat from the pale lips of a poor old goat. Alas! poor goat.
It, too, was evidently straying about unlawfully, in some one’s garden, perhaps, or stripping the posters off the fence before the paste was dry, or the bill-sticker a block away, and in consequence he is now occupying a position that, however exalted it may be in one sense, makes him feel very ill at ease all the same.
His fellow prisoners are dogs of every breed under the sun.
There is no discrimination in that moving prison, no separate cells. The full blood setter pup fares no better than the worthless poodle that couldn’t smell a quail a yard distant unless it was roasting. The big, sour, surly mastiff, with blood-shot eyes and pendent jowl, who long has been the acknowledged champion of a block, and in his day lacerated many a paw, hasn’t even a growl to offer, but crouches side by side with the poor maimed and mongrel cur that for years has been racking through life on three legs.
Still the dismal looking cart jolts along attracting the attention of the passing crowds. Still the villainous-looking aids, who flank the vehicle, trail their ready lariats, and dart exploring glances into every nook and corner. And as I gaze, I marvel to see how quickly the outlaws get a knowledge of its approach, and stand not upon the order of their going, but precipitately leave for back yards and kitchens.
QUAINT EPITAPHS.
While strolling through an old cemetery this afternoon I was surprised at the number of quaint epitaphs there to be found.