I could relate things of this dog by the hour.  Such, for example, as his clever device for crossing a railway.  He never attempted to do this endwise, like other animals, for the obvious reason that, like every one else, he was unable to make any sense of the time-tables; and unless he should by good luck begin the manoeuvre when a train was said to be due, it was likely he would be abbreviated; for of course no one is idiot enough to cross a railway track when the time-table says it is all clear—­at least no one as long as Jerusalem.  So he would advance his head to the rails, calling in his outlying convolutions, and straightening them alongside the track, parallel with it; and then at a signal previously agreed upon—­a short wild bark—­this sagacious dog would make the transit unanimously, as it were.  By this method he commonly avoided a quarrel with the engine.

Altogether he was a very interesting beast, and his master was fond of him no end.  And with the exception of compelling Mr. Petto to remove to the centre of the State to avoid double taxation upon him, he was not wholly unprofitable; for he was the best sheep-dog in the country:  he always kept the flock well together by the simple device of surrounding them.  Having done so, he would lie down, and eat, and eat, and eat, till there wasn’t a sheep left, except a few old rancid ones; and even those he would tear into small spring lambs.

Dad Petto never went anywhere without the superior portion of Jerusalem at his side; and he always alluded to him as “the following dorg.”  But the beast finally became a great nuisance in Illinois.  His body obstructed the roads in all directions; and the Representative of that district in the National Congress was instructed by his constituents to bring in a bill taxing dogs by the linear yard, instead of by the head, as the law then stood.  Dad Petto proceeded at once to Washington to “lobby” against the measure.  He knew the wife of a clerk in the Bureau of Statistics; armed with this influence he felt confident of success.  I was myself in Washington, at the time, trying to secure the removal of a postmaster who was personally obnoxious to me, inasmuch as I had been strongly recommended for the position by some leading citizens, who to their high political characters superadded the more substantial merit of being my relations.

Dad and I were standing, one morning, in front of Willard’s Hotel, when he stooped over and began patting Jerusalem on the head.  All of a sudden the smiling brute sprang open his mouth and bade farewell to a succession of yells which speedily collected ten thousand miserable office-seekers, and an equal quantity of brigadier-generals, who, all in a breath, inquired who had been stabbed, and what was the name of the lady.

Meantime nothing would pacify the pup; he howled most dismally, punctuating his wails with quick sharp shrieks of mortal agony.  More than an hour—­more than two hours—­we strove to discover and allay the canine grievance, but to no purpose.