ng half-serious threats as to the different kinds of sudden death
he was going to inflict on the whole useless, bandylegged, snipe-nosed,
waggle-eared----

The best comment was offered last year by the chauffeur of the
automobile. After gazing on the phenomenon of their extraordinary build
for some moments he remarked thoughtfully:

"Those dogs have a mighty long wheel base!"

For some reason unknown two of the dachshunds have been elevated from
the ranks, and have house privileges. Their names are respectively Pete
and Pup. They hate each other, and have sensitive dispositions. It took
me just four years to learn to tell them apart. I believe Pete has a
slightly projecting short rib on his left side--or is it Pup? It was
fatal to mistake.

"Hullo, Pup!" I would cry to one jovially.

"G--r--r--r--!" would remark the dog, retiring under the sofa. Thus I
would know it was Pete. The worst of it was that said Pete's feelings
were thereby lacerated so deeply that I was not forgiven all the rest of
that day.

Beyond the dogs lay a noble enclosure so large that it would have been
subdivided into building lots had it been anywhere else. It was
inhabited by all sorts of fowl, hundreds of them, of all varieties.
There were chickens, turkeys, geese, and a flock of ducks. The Captain
pointed out the Rouen ducks, almost exactly like the wild mallards.

"Those are my live decoys," said he.

For the accommodation of this multitude were cities of nest houses,
roost houses, and the like. Huge structures elevated on poles swarmed
with doves. A duck pond even had been provided for its proper denizens.

Thus we reached the southernmost outpost of our quadrangle, and turned
to the west, where an ancient Chinaman and an assistant cultivated
minutely and painstakingly a beautiful vegetable garden. Tiny irrigation
streams ran here and there, fitted with miniature water locks. Strange
and foreign bamboo mattings, withes, and poles performed strange and
foreign functions. The gardener, brown and old and wrinkled, his cue
wound neatly beneath his tremendous, woven-straw umbrella of a hat,
possessing no English, no emotion, no single ray of the sort of
intelligence required to penetrate into our Occidental world, bent over
his work. When we passed, he did not look up. He dwelt in a shed. At
least, such it proved to be, when examined with the cold eye of
analysis. In impression it was ancient, exotic, Mongolian, the abode of
one of a mys