A hideously distended, half- blind, rheumatic 

 and stiff-legged spaniel, with the hair completely 

 gone from its once feathery tail, lay asthmatically 

 wheezing on the steps ; while a really prehistoric 

 English bull-dog, so old and fat that he was a 

 marvel to look at, lay at the barn door; both of 

 which animals contributed to the support of the 

 veterinarian. 



And when I reflected that in his own stable 

 were two cows, neither of which had given milk 

 or had a calf for over a dozen years, and were 

 worthy contemporaries of Old Tom and the 

 canine Methuselahs, I mentioned these facts to 

 Daniel, expecting to crush him to the earth, 

 like Truth, with the weight of my facts, but not 

 expecting him, like Truth, to rise again. 



But Daniel, like a sturdy old patriarch, never 

 blinked an eye. "Just the point, boy, just the 

 point. I suppose those infernal old torments 

 have cost me half of what my place is worth. But 

 what can a man do ? They are members of my 

 family, human beings, sir ! But don't ever be as 

 big a fool as I have been." 



Now Daniel, fond as he is of a horse or cow 

 trade, would n't have sold or traded any one of 

 those old pensioners to have saved his own life. 

 But his advice was sound, and the more I thought 

 of it, the sounder it appeared. I had bought 

 Polly five years before, when she was broken for 



