e wandered listlessly and uselessly about the
house; into the mother's room, into his master's room; and one morning
he was found in a dark closet, where he had never gone before, dead--of
a broken heart.

He had only a stump of a tail, but he will wag it--when next his master
sees him!

[Illustration: PUNCH]

The second dog was Punch--a perfect, thorough-bred Dandie Dinmont, and
the most intelligent, if not the most affectionate, of the lot. Punch
and The Boy kept house together for a year or two, and alone. The first
thing in the morning, the last thing at night, Punch was in evidence. He
went to the door to see his master safely off; he was sniffing at the
inside of the door the moment the key was heard in the latch, no matter
how late at night; and so long as there was light enough he watched for
his master out of the window. Punch, too, had a cat--a son, or a
grandson, of Whiskie's cat. Punch's favorite seat was in a chair in the
front basement. Here, for hours, he would look out at the
passers-by--indulging in the study of man, the proper study of his
kind. The chair was what is known as "cane-bottomed," and through its
perforations the cat was fond of tickling Punch, as he sat. When Punch
felt that the joke had been carried far enough, he would rise in his
wrath, chase the cat out into the kitchen, around the back-yard, into
the kitchen again, and then, perhaps, have it out with the cat under the
sink--without the loss of a hair, the use of a claw, or an angry spit or
snarl. Punch and the cat slept together, and dined together, in utter
harmony; and the master has often gone up to his own bed, after a
solitary cigar, and left them purring and snoring in each other's arms.
They assisted at each other's toilets, washed each other's faces, and
once, when Mary Cook was asked what was the matter with Punch's eye, she
said: "I _think_, Sur, that the cat must have put her finger in it, when
she combed his bang!"

Punch loved everybody. He seldom barked, he never bit. He cared nothing
for clothes, or style, or social position. He was as cordial to a beggar
as he would have been to a king; and if thieves had come to break
through and steal, Punch, in his unfailing, hospitable amiability, would
have escorted them through the house, and shown them where the treasures
were kept. All the children were fond of Punch, who accepted mauling as
never did dog before. His master could carry him up-stairs by the tail,
without