THE LITTLE RED DOG 245 



boy, mounted on a creaking old bike, was driving 

 some cows to the common, and had the greatest 

 difficulty in keeping on while following behind the 

 lazy beasts on a rough track among the furze 

 bushes ; and behind the boy at a distance of ten 

 yards trotted the little red dog, tongue out, looking 

 as happy and proud as possible. As I passed him 

 he looked back at me as if to make sure that I had 

 seen him and noted that he formed part of that 

 important procession. On another day I went to 

 the village and renewed my acquaintance with the 

 little fellow and heard his history. Everybody 

 praised him for his affectionate disposition and his 

 value as a watch-dog by night, and I was told that 

 his mother, now dead, had been greatly prized, 

 and was the smallest red dog ever seen in that part 

 of Hampshire. 



Some day one of the thousand writers on " man's 

 friend " will conceive the happy idea of a chapter 

 or two on the dog — the universal cur — and he will 

 then perhaps find it necessary to go abroad to 

 study this well-marked dwarf variety, for with us 

 he has fallen on evil days. There is no doubt that 

 the muzzling order profoundly affected the char- 

 acter of our dog population, since it went far 

 towards the destruction of the cur and of mongrels 

 — the races already imperilled by the extraordinary 

 predominance of the fox-terrier. The change was 

 most marked in the metropolis, and after Mr. 

 Long's campaign I came to the conclusion that 

 here at all events the little red dog had been 



