e a terror to every foe. We are a nation of uncomplaining hard
workers. We mean to do the fair thing by everybody. We plod along, doing
as we would be done by. So does the mule. As a nation we occasionally
stick our ears forward, and fan flies off of our forehead. So does the
mule. We allow parties to get on and ride as long as they behave
themselves. So do does the mule. But when any nation sticks spurs in our
flanks, and tickles our heels with a straw, we come down stiff-legged in
front, our ears look to the beautiful beyond, our voice is cut loose, and
is still for war, and our subsequent end plays the snare drum on anything
that gets in reach of us, and strikes terror to the hearts of all tyrants.
So does the mule.

OUR BLUE-COATED DOG POISONERS.

"Papa, the cruel policeman has murdered little Gip? He sneaked up and
frowed a nice piece of meat to Gip, and Gip he eated it, and fanked the
policeman with his tail, and runned after him and teased for more, but the
policeman fought Gip had enough, and then Gip stopped and looked sorry he
had eaten it, and pretty soon he laid down and died, and the policeman
laughed and went off feeling good. If Dan Sheenan was the policeman any
more he wouldn't poison my dog, would he, pa?"

The above was the greeting the bald-headed _Sun_ man received on Thursday,
and a pair of four-year-old brown eyes were full enough of tears to break
the heart of a policeman of many years' standing, and the little, crushed
master of the dead King Charles spaniel went to sleep sobbing and
believing that policemen were the greatest blot upon the civilization of
the nineteenth century.

Here was a little fellow that had from the day he first stood on his feet
after the scarlet fever had left him alive, been allowing his heart to
become entwined with love for that poor little dog. For nearly a year the
dog had been ready to play with the child when everybody else was tired
out, and never once had the dog been cross or backed out of a romp, and
the laughter and the barking has many a time been the only sound of
happiness in the neighborhood.

If the boy slept too long after dinner, the dog went and rooted around him
as much as to say, "Look a here, Mr. Roy, you can't play this on your
partner any longer. You get up here and we will have a high old time, and
don't you forget it." And pretty soon the sound of baby feet and dog's toe
nails would be heard on the stairs, and the circus would commence.