Years ago we swore on a stack of red chips that we would never own another
dog. Six promising pups that had been presented to us, blooded setters and
pointers, had gone the way of all dog flesh, with the distemper and dog
buttons, and by falling in the cistern, and we had been bereaved _via_ dog
misfortunes as often as John R. Bennett, of Janesville, has been bereaved
on the nomination for attorney general. We could not look a pup in the
face but it would get sick, and so we concluded never again to own a dog.
The vow has been religiously kept since. Men have promised us thousands of
pups, but we have never taken them. One conductor has promised us at least
seventy-five pups, but he has always failed to get us to take one. Dog
lovers have set up nights to devise a way to induce us to accept a dog. We
held out firmly till last week. One day we met Pierce, the Watertown
Junction hotel man, and he told us that he had a greyhound pup that was
the finest bread dog--we think he said bread dog, though it might have
been sausage dog he said--anyway he told us it was blooded, and that when
it grew up to be a man--that is, figuratively speaking--when it grew up to
be a dog full size, it would be the handsomest canine in the Northwest.
We kicked on it, entirely, at first, but when he told us hundreds of men
who had seen the pup had offered him thousands of dollars for it, but that
he had rather give it to a friend than sell it to a stranger, we weakened,
and told him to send it in.
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