Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/298

Rh flies very attentive. Coachman set little boy to brush flies off, but he'd run out in yard and leave me. Flies awful. Thought they'd eat me up, or else I'd shake out brains trying to get rid of them. Mother should have stayed home and licked my ears, but was cruising about neighborhood. Finally coachman put me in dark place, powdered ears, and they got well."

"Why didn't they cut your tail too?" I said, looking at his long, slim tail, which was like a sewer rat's.

"'Twasn't the fashion, Mr. Wayback, a bull terrier's ears are clipped to keep them from getting torn while fighting."

"You're not a fighting dog," I said.

"Not I. Too much trouble. I believe in taking things easy."

"I should think you did," I said, scornfully. "You never put yourself out for any one, I notice; but speaking of cropping ears. What do you think of it?"

"Well," he said, with a sly glance at my head, "it isn't a pleasant operation; but one might as well be out of the world as out of the fashion. I don't care, now my iars are done.'"

"But," I said, "think of the poor dogs that will come after you.'

"What difference does that make to me?" he said. "I'll be dead and out of the way. Men can cut off their ears, and tails, and legs too, if they want to."

"Dandy," I said, angrily, "you're the most selfish dog that I ever saw."

"Don't excite yourself," he said, coolly. "Let me get on with my story. When I was a few months old, I began to find the stable yard narrow and wondered what there was outside it. I discovered a hole in the garden wall,