A Dog’s Letter.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue X, 9 March 1901, Page 475

A Dog’s Letter.

(Nello a black spaniel, writes to Jumbo. St. Bernard.)

“Dear Jumbo: I must write you of my experience with a mowing machine—l believe, though, they call them clipping machines—but it’s all the same thing, for. let me tell you. my dear boy, if you ever get under one you’ll imagine you're a whole pasture of grass, and that it took two machines to make hay of you. Well, the pesky fleas bothered me so that 1

scratched and bit myself sore. So yesterday morning my grandpa said he would have me clipped. Down we trotted to Young> stable, where they placed on my nose a thing they called a “muazle.’’ and theu set the “clipper” working. It made such a buzzing noise that I was at flrst “skeered.” but I looked up in grandpa's face, and l)e looked so unconcerned that I settled down again. Soon I felt something going over my back, legs and sides, sort-o’ scratchy like, and I then thought my kind grandpa had noticed how tired 1 was scratching, and had hired this man to do it for me. But fancy my sensations, upon looking in a mirror, to find they had taken off my overcoat. Bi:t Jumbo. 1 assure you. I feel more comfortable, now that it is all over, and I advise you to tease your pa to have your coat taken off. and then the fleas will have no nest to burrow in. I think I could slip through my grandma’s hands, if she were going to punish me, I am so smooth. You see, 1 do love to jump on and kiss callers, and hear them squeal, and it makes grandma lose her temper.

“Oh, Jumbo, does your ma tuck up her pettieoats and run out in her garden every morning to count her dahlias? And does she squeal and say. ‘Here’s a bud. and here’s another?’ Sometimes I get so disgusted. If it was a nice juicy bone now. you and 1 would not so much wonder, but a lot of green things, pooh! I don’t see anything to get excited about! Anyway. it is fun to tag her around.

“I must close, as there's a big flea, after all. biting my ear. and I need my paw to scratch with. So good-bye. Yours ever, NELLO.