Sometimes he would come to the parlor-door with his feet very wet and muddy from running through the street-gutters.  Then we would say, “O Carlo! what dirty boots!” He would hang down his head, and go off to the back-yard, and lick his feet until they were clean, when, with a bound, and a wag of the tail, he would rush back to the parlor, quite sure that he would be let in.

But the month of June was coming,—­a sorrowful time for dogs; for the city had ordered that all dogs found on the streets without muzzles on must be destroyed.  At five o’clock every morning, the wagons used to go through the streets, and take up all dogs that were not muzzled.  So we had to get a “bonnet,” as we called it, for our pet.

It was made of bright red leather, and really he looked so handsome in it, that we thought he ought to like to wear it when he went out for a walk; but he didn’t one bit.  He used to rub his head on the sidewalk, and fuss and squirm, and, when he didn’t get rid of his bonnet in that way, the cunning fellow used to hide it when he got home.

[Illustration]

We kept it hung up on a high nail in the dining-room; but one day, when we called Carlo to have his bonnet put on before he went out, there was no bonnet to be found.  Who could have taken it?  I must say Carlo acted very much like the thief; for he hung his head, and looked sheepish, when we asked him about it.

We hunted under the chairs and the lounge, in the closets, in parlor and dining-room, Carlo fussing round with us, just as if he wanted dreadfully to find it; but it couldn’t be found.  So we went out, and shut the street-door after us, saying, “Well, Carlo, you can’t go out to walk, that’s all.”

Those who hide know where to find.  When Carlo saw, that, without his bonnet, there was no walk for him, he scampered into the basement-kitchen, got out the muzzle from a pile of old papers in one of the closets, carried it up stairs, and laid it down on the dining-room floor.

But this was not the last time Carlo hid his red bonnet and found it again.  In all sorts of places he would stow it away when he came in from his walks.  And at last he got so used to it that when we said, “Now, Carlo, go fetch your bonnet,” he would dash off and pull it from its hiding-place, and quietly stand to have it buckled on.

He behaved so well in the streets, that before the dog-season was over, we used to take his bonnet off, and let him carry it home in his mouth.  One rainy day, when the water was pouring down the open gutters, and I was hurrying home, I happened to look round, and there was Carlo coming along behind me; but his pretty red bonnet was bobbing along in the gutter, where the sly rascal had thrown it, hoping, I suppose, that it would be carried down to the Delaware River.

B.P.

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CHARLEY GOES A-FISHING.