HOW TO WASH A DOG. DOG was looking very scrubby about the back. I thought he was going to have the mange-not that I knew mange if I saw it, only it was a sort of word that sounded like the look of that dog's back. So I went to a friend who knew a deal about dogs (which I don't), and said mine was going to have the mange -what was good for it? Sulphur, he said, was the best thing to use; safe cure for it; no difficulty. I didn't know whether the sulphur should be taken as a pill, or put on like ointment; all I knew was that he said "sulphur," and I did not choose to expose my ignorance by asking. I concluded I would try the effects of a wash first. I went into a grocer's, and asked for threepenn'orth of soft-soap, saying in an off-hand way, "Kills fleas, doesn't it?" I had never seen soft-soap before (I never want to see it again; but let that pass), so I was interested in its appearance when I got a lump, about the size of my two fists, of a stodgy, moshy, clammylooking mass, resembling a mixture of sand and halffrozen honey. The man wrapped it up in a piece of paper, and I shud thank you." Some men always say, "Thank You." And, self-satisfied I went my way, the noble hound (N.B.-Cross between a general mongrel and a pine log) following me unconscious of his fate. It was in the back-yard that the deed was done. With a generosity worthy of a better cause, I had brought down from my bed-room my own bathone of those round, shallow, milk-pan affairs-and had filled it about two inches deep with lukewarm water. Then came the scratch; I use this word metaphorically, but it became literal before the operation was over-as the paint that is not in my bath can testify. I knew no more about the application of softsoap than of sulphur, but I thought that I could guess how to use the former, which I imagined to IN THE BATH. (Drawn by W. Ralston.) dered at the feel of it, as I put it into my coat- be harmless; while with the sulphur I might have pocket. "Thanks - good morning." done it wrong, and have been had up for culpable canicide. Cook kindly pinned the sacking cover of her travelling-box round me, to keep off the splashes, and provided a square of old carpet, folded up, small, so as to be soft, for me to kneel on. I lifted the dog into the bath, and held him by the scruff, while he madly plunged, kicked, and struggled in his anxiety to get out, ploughing up the bright paint at the bottom in long beautiful, furrows--four of them parallel, at a stroke. To do the dog justice, however, he did not waste the paint. At the end of each nail-rut was a sweet little coil, all ready to be stuck down in the furrow again by any one who knew how. I did not know how. With my right hand I applied the softt-soap. It never struck me that it might act like ordinary soap does when rubbed into hair; but it did -only, more so. If it had struck me I might have been content with using a lump say about the size of a piece of mud; but, being in ignorance, I calmly and systematically plastered that dog until all my three-penn'orth was gone, and the faithful beast looked like a stuffed brown-tabby cat with its complexion a little bit faded. Then the wash really began. Taking some water in my hand, I set-to to work up the soap,commencing on the back. At first there was no effect, and my hand slipped about like an eel spiralising on a greasy pole-downwards. Presently a tinge of white appeared, and gradually spread and spread. This was lather. I think I'll alter the type of that sentence, and say,This os lather.' It was! It rose, and rose, and rose: it spread; it widened out; it hung down, and stuck out in front and behind far beyond the last hairy extremities of dog. Still I persevered, and still the lather increased, till the four legs were one solid pedestal of white, and all semblance of animal shape was lost in soap. Then I began to wash the soap off, but the more 1 At The stone of the sink was soon hidden from sight in a snowy covering. Presently two spots of dog appeared, deep down in two chasms of lather. Then I grew hopeful, and shifted the entirety a bit, so that more transformation might ensue. last I was able to welcome a considerable portion of my old friend, when I began to rub what I could see of him, and lo, more white arose! This went on, and I finally treated the dog like somebody else's riddle, and gave him up. Discarding the box-cover, I sallied forth with him into the wood, and, as I proceeded towards the pond by the brick kilns, he left behind him along the heather a bright, glistening, gleaming track, as if some gigantic smail had passed that But the pond was reached, and two masterly immersions (I say it with conscious pride) settled him. He came out clean, wet, and happy. Happy? Well, that is, speaking comparatively. My dog has got a cold now! way. * * F. W. T. HORTLY after ten o'clock, the singing snow-white smock-frocks, embroidered upon the boys arrived at the tranter's house, shoulders and breasts, in ornamental forms of which was invariably the place of meet-hearts, diamonds, and zigzags. The cider-mug was ing, and preparations were made for the start. The older men and musicians wore thick coats, with stiff perpendicular collars, and coloured handkerchiefs wound round and round the neck till the end came to hand, over all which they just showed their ears and noses, like people looking over a wall. The remainder, stalwart ruddy men and boys, were mainly dressed in emptied for the ninth time, the music-books were arranged, and the pieces finally decided upon. The boys, in the mean time, put the old hornlanterns in order, cut candles into short lengths to fit the lanterns; and, a thin fleece of snow having fallen since the early part of the evening, those who had no leggings went to the stable and wound wisps of hay round their ankles to keep the insidious flakus from the interior of their boots. Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, played "Now mind, naibours," he said, as they all went "Farmer Ledlow's first ?" "Farmer Ledlow's first; the rest as usual" "And, Voss," said the tranter terminatively, "you keep house here till about half-past two; then heat the metheglin and cider in the warmer you'll find turned up upon the copper; and bring it wi' the victuals to church-porch, as th'st know." Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited by about two o'clock: they then passed across the Home Plantation toward the main village. Pursuing no recognised track, great care was necessary in walking lest their faces should come in contact with the low-hanging boughs of the old trees, which in many spots formed dense overgrowths of interlaced branches. "Times have changed from the times they used to be," said Mail, regarding nobody can tell what interesting old panoramas with an inward eye, and letting his outward glance rest on the ground, because it was as convenient a position as any. "People don't care much about us now! I've been thinking, we must be almost the last left in the county of the old string players. Barrel-organs, and they next door to 'em that you blow wi' your foot, have come in terribly of late years." "Ah!" said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on seeing him, did the same thing. "More's the pity," replied another. "Time was -long and merry ago now!-when not one of the varmits was to be heard of; but it served some of the choirs right. They should have stuck to strings as we did, and keep out clar'nets, and done away with serpents. If you'd thrive in musical religion, stick to strings, says L" 29 said Mr. Spinks. Penny. "Old things pass away, 'tis true; but a Michael Mail. "Clar'nets, however, be bad at all times," said now, years-I went the rounds wi' the Dibbeach "One Christmas-years agone all the clarinets froze-ah, they did freeze-so choir. Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of that 'twas like drawing a cork every time a key was opened; the players o' 'em had to go into a hedger and ditcher's chimley-corner, and thaw Penny, "what I said to poor Joseph Ryme (who "Now to Farmer Shinar's, and then replenish our insides, father," said the tranter. They now crossed Twenty-acres to proceed to the lower village, and met Voss with the hot mead "Wi' all my heart," said old William, shoulder- and bread-and-cheese as they were crossing the ing his bass-viol. Farmer Shinar's was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner of a lane that ran obliquely into the principal thoroughfare. The upper windows were much wider than they were high, and this feature, together with a broad bay-window where the door might have been expected, gave it by day the aspect of a human countenance turned askance, and wearing a sly and wicked leer. Tonight nothing was visible but the outline of the roof upon the sky. churchyard. This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding farther, and they entered the belfry. The lanterns were opened, and the whole body sat round against the walls on benches and whatever else was available, and made a hearty meal. In the pauses of conversation could be heard through the floor overhead a little world of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which never spread farther than the tower they were born in, and raised in the more meditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct The front of this building was reached, and the pathway of Time. preliminaries arranged as usual. Having done eating and drinking, the instru "Forty breaths, and number thirty-two,- Be- ments were again tuned, and once more the party hold the morning star,'" said old William. emerged into the night air. They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were doing the up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the opening chord of the third verse, when, without a light appearing or any signal being given, a roaring voice exclaimed: "Shut up! Don't make your blaring row here. A feller wi' a headache enough to split likes a quiet night." Slam went the window. "Hullo, that's an ugly blow for we artists!" said the tranter, in a keenly appreciative voice, and turning to his companions. "Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony" said old William commandingly; and they continued to the end. "Forty breaths, and number nineteen!" said William firmly. "Give it him well; the choir can't be insulted in this manner!" A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the farmer stood revealed as one in a terrific passion. "Drown en--drown en!" the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. "Play fortissimy, and drown his spaking!" "Fortissimy!" said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so loud that it was impossible to know what Mr. Shinar had said, was saying, or was about to say; but wildly flinging his arms and body about in the form of capital X's and Y's, he appeared to utter enough invectives to consign the whole parish to perdition. "Very unseemly-very!" said old William, as they retired. "Never such a dreadful scene in the whole round o' my carrel practice-never! And he a churchwarden!" "Only a drap o' drink got into his head," said the tranter. แ Man's well enough when he's in his religious frame. He's in his worldly frame now. Must ask en to our bit of a party to-morrer night, I suppose, and so put en in track again. We bear no nartel man ill-will." "Where's Dick?" said old Dewy. Every man looked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have been transmuted into one or the other; and then they said they didn't know. "Well now, that's what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I do so," said Michael Mail. "He've clinked off home-along, depend upon't," another suggested, though not quite believing that he had. "Dick!" exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forth among the yews. He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an answer, and finding he listened in vain, turned to the assemblage. "The tribble man too! Now if he'd been a tinner or counter chap, we might ha' contrived the rest o't without en, you see. But for a choir to lose the tribble, why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your The tranter paused, unable to mention an image vast enough for the occasion. "Your head at once," suggested Mr. Penny. "Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half done and turning tail like this?" "Never," replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last man in the world to wish to withhold the formal finish required of him. "I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook the lad!' said his grandfather. "O no," replied tranter Dewy placidly. "Wonder where he've put that there fiddle of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillens, and good words besides. Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that there instrument will be unglued and spoilt in ten minutes-ten! ay, two." "What in the name o' righteousness can have happened?" said old William, still more uneasily. Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the |