164 AUNT ESTHER'S STORIES. 



is it generous or manly, when your old pet and playmate 

 grows sickly and feeble, and can no longer amuse you, to 

 forget all the good old times you have had with him, and 

 let him become a poor, trembling, hungry, abused vagrant? 

 If you cannot provide comforts for his old age, and see to 

 his nursing, you can at least secure him an easy and pain- 

 less passage from this troublesome world. A manly fellow 

 I once knew, who, when his old hound became so diseased 

 that he only lived to suffer, gave him a nice meal with his 

 own hand, patted .his head, got him to sleep, and then 

 shot him, so that he was dead in a moment, felt no 

 pain, and knew nothing but kindness to the last. 



And now to Aunt Esther's stories of a dog I must add 

 one more which occurred in a town where I once lived. I 

 have told you of the fine traits of blood-dogs, their sagacity 

 and affection. In doing this, perhaps, I have not done half 

 justice to the poor common dogs, of no particular blood or 

 breed, that are called curs or mongrels ; yet among these 

 I believe you will quite as often find both affection and 

 sagacity as among better-born dogs. 



The poor mongrel I am going to tell you about belonged 

 to a man who had not, in one respect, half the sense that 

 his dog had. A dog will never eat or drink a thing that 

 has once made him sick, or injured him ; but this man 

 would drink, time and time again, a deadly draught, that 

 took away his senses and unfitted him for any of his duties. 



