LOOK AT THE 'OSSES 'E'S LEFT US TO RIDE!"

* * * * *

NOTES BY A WAR-DOG.

Now I don't want to snarl at the Cause--whatever it may be--but it isn't
all beef-bones and country walks by any means. I first became aware of
it about the same time the Dachshund at the corner house began to
declare he was an Aberdeen Terrier. From that time on I scented
something wrong, though could never quite dig it out. For one thing, the
parrot began to practise a new phrase about "Down with the KAI...!" and
also "_Veeve_" the something or other. Then Mabel--who does absurd
things but has to be tolerated because she waits upon me--started tying
coloured ribbons in my hair, and later sticking little flags in my
collar; but I put a stop to that. A week ago things came to a head, and
don't look like improving.

For the last five years my daily life has been brightened in manner
following. We live next door to a railway station and a pastry-cook's.
Every morning Mabel gives me a round hard thing she calls a penny, and
very slippery to hold in one's mouth. I carry the penny to the
pastry-cook's. The girl takes it and gives me a currant biscuit in
exchange. Sometimes there are people in the shop, and then I gaze upon
them meltingly. If they are the right sort, they melt--according to
their means; usually it's pastry. The rest of the day I spend loafing
about the station _and_ the pastry-cook's. Now all that is changed.

Last Thursday Mabel took me to a Committee, a place full of typewriters
and ladies; and I was registered--so they said; Mabel being given a
sheet of paper all over scribble, and a wooden box with "War Relief
Fund" on it. "On Monday, dear," said Mabel, "you begin."

I have begun. Would you believe it? I had to wear that beastly box tied
to my collar! Retrievers, I know, are used to that sort of thing; but
I'm a Collie. All that day I hung about on my old beat, and every now
and then somebody gushed and called me silly names, and dropped a penny
into my box. Conceive the hideous mockery of my position! By four
o'clock there was I sitting outside that confectioner's, wearing enough
pennies to buy the shop out, and yet not a Bath bun to the good!

But that wasn't the worst. About five an urchin came along, looked at
mo, grinned, and tried to put something in my box. Clumsy little beast,
he trod on my foot. I sprang forward with a growl, and his offering,
whatever it was, rolled on the pavement. R