ail, the longer it is the
better."

Doggy Tales

Tinker

MY name is Stumps, and my mistress is rather a nice little girl; but she
has her faults, like most people. I myself, as it happens, am
wonderfully free from faults. Among my mistress's faults is what I may
call a lack of dignity, joined to a desire to make other people
undignified too.

You will hardly believe that, before I had belonged to her a month, she
had made me learn to dance and to jump. I am a very respectable
dachshund, of cobby build, and jumping is the very last exercise I
should have taken to of my own accord. But when Miss Daisy said, "Now
jump, Stumps; there's a darling!" and held out her little arms, I could
not well refuse. For, after all, the child is my mistress.

I never could understand why the cat was not taught to dance. It seemed
to me very hard that, when I was having those long, miserable lessons,
the cat should be allowed to sit down doing nothing but smile at my
misfortunes. Trap always said we ought to feel honoured by being taught,
and the reason why Pussy wasn't asked to learn was because she was so
dreadfully stupid, and had no brains for anything but the pleasures of
the chase and the cares of a family; but I didn't think that could be
the reason, because the doll was _taught_ to dance, though she never
_learned_, and I am sure _she_ was stupid enough.

Another thing which Miss Daisy taught me to do was to beg; and the
action fills me with shame and pain every time I perform it, and as the
years go on I hate it more and more.

For a stout, middle-aged dog, the action is absurd and degrading. Yet,
such is the force of habit, that I go through the performance now quite
naturally whenever I want anything. Trap does it too, and says what does
it matter? but then he has no judgment, and, besides, he's thin.

But one of the most thoughtless things my little mistress ever did was
one day last summer when she was out without me. I chose to stay at home
because it was very hot, and I knew that the roads would be dusty; and
she was only going down to the village shop, where no one ever thinks
of offering a dog anything to drink. If she had been going to the farm,
I should have gone with her, because the lady there shows proper
attention to visitors, and always sets down a nice dish of milk for us
dogs. Besides, I was a little unwell just then; the family had had duck
for dinner, and I always feel a little faint after