xploits are miracles of heroic dignity and of
good luck.

There was a little artificial water-lily pool on The Place, perhaps
four feet deep. By actual count, Bruce fell into it no less than nine
times in a single week. Once or twice he had nearly drowned there
before some member of the family chanced to fish him out. And, learning
nothing from experience, he would fall in again, promptly, the next day.

The Master at last rigged up a sort of sloping wooden platform, running
from the lip of the pool into the water, so that Bruce could crawl out
easily, next time he should tumble in. Bruce watched the placing of
this platform with much grave interest. The moment it was completed, he
trotted down it on a tour of investigation. At its lower edge he
slipped and rolled into the pool. There he floundered, with no thought
at all of climbing out as he had got in, until the Master rescued him
and spread a wire net over the whole pool to avert future accidents.

Thenceforth, Bruce met with no worse mischance, there, than the
perpetual catching of his toe-pads in the meshes of the wire. Thus
ensnared he would stand, howling most lamentably, until his yells
brought rescue.

Though the pool could be covered with a net, the wide lake at the foot
of the lawn could not be. Into the lake Bruce would wade till the water
reached his shoulders. Then with a squeal of venturesome joy, he would
launch himself outward for a swim; and, once facing away from shore, he
never had sense enough to turn around.

After a half-hour of steady swimming, his soft young strength would
collapse. A howl of terror would apprise the world at large that he was
about to drown. Whereat some passing boatman would pick him up and hold
him for ransom, or else some one from The Place must jump into skiff or
canoe and hie with all speed to the rescue. The same thing would be
repeated day after day.

The local S.P.C.A. threatened to bring action against the Master for
letting his dog risk death, in this way, from drowning. Morbidly, the
Master wished the risk might verge into a certainty.

The puppy's ravenous appetite was the wonder of all. He stopped eating
only when there was nothing edible in reach. And as his ideas of edible
food embraced everything that was chewable,--from bath-towels to
axle-grease--he was seldom fasting and was frequently ill.

Nature does more for animals than for humans. By a single experience
she warns them, as a rule, what they may