THE EARTH'S BOUNTY 



the faithful devotion of what people call com- 

 mon dogs, that I could not refrain from telling 

 their stories, to make it perfectly clear to every 

 one that when I advocate thoroughbred dogs, 

 it is solely for commercial reasons, and not in 

 any disparagement of "just dog," yellow or 

 any other color, for no aristocrat, however blue 

 its blood, could have usurped Jack's and Ro- 

 ver's places in our affection. 



Great Danes are the best dogs to be kept 

 from mercenary motives. Our genii brought 

 them to us, though by common ordinary chan- 

 nels. Pigs had to be killed, and a butcher 

 was engaged to come and do the gory work. 

 I suppose some one had been talking about 

 dear old Jack's death, for the man asked to see 

 me, and said that he had two big dogs, which 

 he had taken to board some time before, and 

 as no one had come to pay their bills, he could 

 not afford to keep them any longer; he would 

 be glad to let me have them for $5 a piece. 

 Finding that he knew nothing about the 

 owner's whereabouts, I agreed to take them on 



357 



