to
be nothing but a fat tub, and his head to be almost the head of any
little puppy in the world. He felt it deeply. When I chaffed him about
it he tried to eat my ankles. I had only to go into the room in which he
was, and murmur, "Rat's tail," to myself, or (more offensive still)
"Chewed string," for him to rush at me. "Where, O Bingo, is that
delicate feather curling gracefully over the back, which was the pride
and glory of thy great-grandfather? Is the caudal affix of the rodent
thy apology for it?" And Bingo would whimper with shame.

Then we began to look him up in the map.

I found a Chinese town called "Ning-po," which strikes me as very much
like "Bing-go," and Celia found another one called "Yung-Ping," which
might just as well be "Yung-Bing," the obvious name of Bingo's heir when
he has one. These facts being communicated to Bingo, his nose
immediately began to go back a little and his tub to develop something
of a waist. But what finally decided him was a discovery of mine made
only yesterday. _There is a Japanese province called Bingo._ Japanese,
not Chinese, it is true; but at least it is Oriental. In any case
conceive one's pride in realising suddenly that one has been called
after a province and not after a poodle. It has determined Bingo
unalterably to grow up in the right way.

You have Bingo now definitely a Pekinese. That being so, I may refer to
his ancestors, always an object of veneration among these Easterns. I
speak of (hats off, please!) Ch. Goodwood Lo.

Of course you know (I didn't myself till last week) that "Ch." stands
for "Champion." On the male side Champion Goodwood Lo is Bingo's
great-great-grandfather. On the female side the same animal is Bingo's
great-grandfather. One couldn't be a poodle after that. A fortnight
after Bingo came to us we found in a Pekinese book a photograph of
Goodwood Lo. How proud we all were! Then we saw above it, "Celebrities
of the Past. The Late----"

Champion Goodwood Lo was no more! In one moment Bingo had lost both his
great-grandfather and his great-great-grandfather!

We broke it to him as gently as possible, but the double shock was too
much, and he passed the evening in acute depression. Annoyed with my
tactlessness in letting him know anything about it, I kicked Humphrey
off his stool. Humphrey, I forgot to say, has a squeak if kicked in the
right place. He squeaked.

Bingo, at that time still uncertain of his destiny, had at least the
cour