38 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



caught it, and we unfeelingly made a joke of his dis- 

 appointment — or, in his excessive zeal to hold himself 

 very upright when sitting up to beg at dinner, dear 

 Toto may have leaned back just a little too far and 

 rolled over on to his back ; a painXal position for so 

 majestic an animal, and one which ought to have com- 

 manded respectful silence, instead of provoking an 

 unkind laugh. This misfortune has happened several 

 times to poor Toto, especially during the process of 

 learning his threefold trick of sitting up to beg, 

 " asking " — with a little short bark — for bone or 

 biscuit, and finally catching the contribution in his 

 mouth. It is really difficult to refrain from laughing 

 at his sudden collapse, preceded as it always is by an 

 extra self-satisfied look — just the expression of the doc 

 in Caldecott's " House that Jack built," as he sits 

 smiling and all-unconscious of the cow coming up 

 behind to toss him. A conceited protrusion of Toto's 

 big white shirt-frill is usually the occasion of fallincr, 

 and no doubt he deserves to be laughed at ; but the 

 poor fellow's evident distress, and his " countenance 

 more in sorrow than in anger " at our cruel mirth, have 

 led us to make great effbits to keep our gravity, and, 

 with true politeness, to pretend not to see him. 



Though Toto is not generally a demonstrative dog, 

 there is no mistake about his affection for us ; he shows 

 it in many quiet little sympathetic ways, and seems 

 even more human than the generality of collies. He 

 has constituted himself my special guardian and pro- 

 tector, and though at all times a very devoted attendant, 



