A DOG- STORY.
[To THZ EDITOR OE THE " SPECTATOR.”)
Sin,—I think that a little account of our dog Tim' may be• of interest to some of your readers. 'Tim' was a well-bred,. good-tempered ball-terrier, who was sent out to India to us • quite young. He very quickly learnt the usual tricks, but one of his chief accomplishments was to carry a note to his. master and bring me back the answer. He had to go some little distance to the office, and he would make his way to his• master through the crowd of peons and office people, much to their astonishment, would wait for the answer to be given to him, and then trot back to me. Occasionally, if the weather was very hot, and I sent him more than once in the course of the morning, instead of coming back to me he would slink oft' into a cool corner of the office and lie down, still keeping the note carefully in his mouth, until discovered by his master.. The old Chobdar would say solemnly of him,—" God has given him the body of a dog, but he has the sense (akle) of a man." Tim' really appeared to have the faculty of counting, for when two horses were brought round to the door of a morning he knew at once that he was to accompany us ; when only one came he would put on an air of submissive resignation, wait to see his master start, and then come to see if I was ready for a walk. When we went down to Bombay Tim' was taken out by the dog-boy. On his return he would rush through all the rooms- looking for his master. If he did not find him he would go to the hatstand and stand looking up at the hats as if counting them ; then, having apparently satisfied himself that one was missing, he would lie down at the top of the stairs watching for his master. I have seen him do this many times. He was quite devoted to us. He was always fed once a day at our dinner ; if we went out to dinner Tim' was tied up, with his. food put close to him ; but he would not touch it until our return, when he was untied and would scamper down the- stairs to welcome us, and then rash back to eat up his dinner. `Tim' had but a short life, as he died quite suddenly ; and we thought he must have been bitten by a snake when chasing a oat. He was mourned quite like a child of the house, the old Mussulman butler coming to beg for an old sheet, in which he sewed the poor dog up and carried him down to a corner of the pretty sunny garden, where a grave had been dug close to some other faithful canine friends of former residents.—I am,
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