SMITH’S WATCH-DOG.

Kumara Times, Issue 1444, 14 May 1881, Page 2

SMITH’S WATCH-DOG.

Smith, the groceiy man, had his grocery burgled one night. The burglars took out two panes of glass, and about two dollars in counterfeit scrip, that had been laying in Smith’s drawers for a long time, which he could not shove off on to anybody. Smith didn’t care so much about the money, but it made him mad to think that he had been training a dog for' three or four years to make it hot for burglars, and when they actually came into the store and ransacked around, the confounded dog didn’t hear them. Smith has thrown his whole soul into training that dog, and he has hired men to sneak around the back door evenings, so the dog could catch them at it and take a piece out of the seat of their pants. Smith got a man that visits a good deal at the store, to go round the back way one evening and roll a barrel out of the back-room, promising him a can of oysters. Smith waited until the carpenter had got the barrel nearly out of doors, when he told “ Bruno” there was strange work going on in the back room, and go and see about it. The man was leaning over the barrel, which drew his pants remarkably tight around the shoulders, and Bruno took hold and shook the man a couple times, when he dropped the barrel and back and told Smith he would kick the liver out of his cussed dog if he ever bit him again. He was so road that he wouldn’t take the oysters until Smith threw him. a couple of pounds of crackers to heal up the marks of the dog’s teeth. Smith enjoyed it, and said he wouldn’t take a hundred dollars for that dog. About a month ago, one evening when it was raining, and there was no trade, Smith thought he would practice with the dog. So he told Adams, the clerk, that he would go around the back way, and come in still, and steal something, and see what the dog would do. So Smith went around to the back door, put a horse-blanket over him, and took a codfish and started out, with the dog after him. Smith had got almost to the wagon shed, when Bruno seized him by the calf of the back, and shook the old man terribly. Smith yelled “Firel” and climbed up the shed with the dog hanging on. He called the dog by name, and told him he was a “ good dog,” and all that, but “ Bruno” hung to the ragged edge until Adams came out and reasoned with him with a piece of slab. For a number of days Smith didn’t sit down in the store at all. He told them he had rheumatish in the spine. Some of the rubber in Smith’s suspenders were badly stretched, and since then be has had his pants made with more slack. He fairly wore up the codfish on the dog when he got down. We wouldn’t have such a temper as Smith has got for anything.