The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-04-28
B0ZZLE'S DOG.
The Fuss He Caused by Stealing
the "School-Marm's Bunnet."

If ever there was a thoroughly de-
moralized animal, lost to all sense OF
even canine decency, that animal was
'Bozzle's dog" AT any rate this was
the popular verdict of the inhabitants
of Kentville, and public opinion, you
know, is always right. Not that he was
a particularly savage brute, but the fac
ulty that he exhibited for getting into
all imaginable kind of scrapes was SIM
ply remarkable; and he had a perfect
mania for appropriating for his own
use things which did not belong to
him-was, in fact, a sort of canine
Rleptomaniac.
Many a missing lamb and fat turkey
had been traced directly to him, and at
last almost every disappearance of
small articles in the village was laid at
his door.
Hewas long, gaunt, ill-proportioned,
wolfish looking brute, half wolf.
half dog. an the other half devil" as
old Pat Mallory described him, and was
covered with a growth of scraggy, vel
aow hair, and was as the aforesaid Pat
rick had not inaptly termed it, ''etarn-
ally mindin' everybody's business but
bis own"
The attempts at his destruction on
the part of the peace-loving ''Kentvil-
lians" were beyond enumeration. He
had been shot at scores of times, with
every conceivable kind of firearms,
dubbed by all the BOYS in the village,
and the poison which he had eaten
would have started drug store; while
the amount of pulverized glass which
he had unsuspectingly made away with
in choice bits OF meat was altogether
beyond comprehension. But somehow
he seemed to bear a charmed life. for
he invariably came off from such en-
counters unframed.
Exactly who his master was, and
where he came from, no one seemed to
know. All that was known about him
was that one day in June. a stranger,
who gave his name as Captain Boswell,
had come over to the little village OF
Kentville, and had rented a house
known as the ''Smith place." which
stood at the outskirts of the town, and
which for a number of years had been
tenantless, and taken up his abode
there, with no other companions than
his old hOusekeeper and bis dog, Bob
for such was the unfortunate animals
name.
As is usual in such cases, the neigh
-bors poured in to call on him, and try
to strike up an acquaintance, but in
this case they met with very little sue
cess.
They found him to be a very quiet
stufious sort of a man, of apparently
thirty-five years of age, who looked as
If he had had some great sorrow in
former years. which had left him with
a melancholy look; and though he
treated them in a perfectly polite and
gentlemanly way, he gave them &c
understand as plainly as he could by
his manner that he did not desire any
company. And so they took the hint
and left him alone, though two or three
more energetic undertook to pump the
old housekeeper, and succeeded in OBJ
tanning the rather meager information
that her employer had come there TO
rest and study, and that was all.
OF course the gossips of the village
had a goodly number of stories afloat
about the Captain. Some said that he
was bachelor who had been Tilted in
his Younger DAYS, and had taken it so
much a: heart that he had at last buried
himself alive in this out-of-the-way
place; while others said that he had
come here merely for the sake OF
rest and quiet, and was writing
some great scientific book or
other - they knew, for hadn't
they seen all kinds of books and writ
ings in his room when they had been
there? and then had they not seen him
at times away on the hills collecting al
kinds of plants and rocks? Though,
for their part, they didn't see what g
man wanted to waste his time gath.
ering up such useless things as those
for.
But whether any or all of these sur
misses were correct, it matters little tC
the gentleman himself, for he kept W
his old habits, seldom showing himself
at all, except to 60 on the aforesaid
botaniZing expeditions.
But if the man lived the life of her
INIT, his dog did not choose to, evident
ay, and so he went on committing hi
hAnredations and going gradually from