e be taken amiss?

"Why am I reckoned the best and cleverest of dogs? Because I've picked
up tricks so quickly ever since I was a pup.

"And if I couldn't wrinkle my forehead and poke out my chin, and grimace
at the judges, do you suppose I should ever have been--Class Pug. First
Prize--Champion and Gold Cup?

"We have one thing in common--I do _not_ find it easy to sit up.

"But I learned it, and so will you. I can't imagine worse manners than
to put one's tongue in one's cheek; as a rule, I hang mine gracefully
out on one side.

"And I've no doubt it's a mistake to gnaw your fingers. I gnawed a good
deal in my puppyhood, but chewing my paws is a trick that I never tried.

"How you stand on one leg I cannot imagine; with my figure it's all I
can do to stand upon four.

"I balance biscuit on my nose. Do you? I jump through a hoop (an
atrocious trick, my dear, after one's first youth--and a full meal!)--I
bark three cheers for the Queen, and I shut the dining-room door.

"I lie flat on the floor at the word of command--In short, I've as many
tricks as you have, and every one of them counts to my credit;

"Whilst yours--so you say--only bring you into disgrace, which I could
not have thought possible if you had not said it.

"Indeed--but for the length of my experience and the solidity of my
judgment--this would tempt me to think your mamma a very foolish person,
and to advise you to disobey her; but I do _not_, Little Missis, for I
know

"That if you belong to good and kind people, it is well to let them
train you up in the way in which they think you should go.

"Your excellent parents trained me to tricks; and very senseless some of
them seemed, I must say:

"But I've lived to be proud of what I've been taught; and glad too that
I learned to obey.

"For, depend upon it, if you never do as you're told till you know the
reason why, or till you find that you must;

"You are much less of a Prize Pug than you might have been if you'd
taken good government on trust."

* * * * *

"Take me back to your arms, Little Missis, I feel cooler, and calmer in
my mind.

"Yes, there can be no doubt about it. You must do what your mother
tells you, for you know that she's wise and kind.

"You must take as much pains to _lose your_ tricks as I took to _learn
mine_, long ago;

"And we may all live to see you yet--'Class, Young Lady. First Prize.
Gold Medal--of a Show.'"

TINY.