Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-10-08
THE DOG AND THE DIAMOND RING
A Poser for the Learned Judges of Vienna
to Decide Upon.

" Dectue Upon.
From the London Daily Telegraph
A well-known and very popular viennese
sportsman was entertaining few jovial friends
at dejeuner La fourchette, during which the
conversation turned on sport and the chase
In the heat Of discussion the host gesticulated
freely, and in consequence Of q graceful but
very sudden wave of his hand O costly diamond
ring. which he constantly wore, slipped from
his finger and was cast high in the air to the
opposite end of the apartment. Now this ring,
in addition TO its market price, which was con-
siderable, possessed a very high extrinsic value
for its owner, who had received it as a souvenir
and venerated ii a relic. Unfortunately the
ring did not slide or roll onto the ioor but
was jerked upward and onward, Just as q bis
cult or piece of sugar might be thrown for q
dog to catch. As i'll luck would have il re-
markably clever pointer was crouched in the
corner watching the company attentively, and
taking the graceful movement Of the hosts be-
teweled hand in conjunction with a solid OBJ
ject moving toward il in the air as conclusive
proofs that q toothsome morsel was being
thrown to him, caught the ring before it fell
and swallowed it before its owner could cry
Jack Robinsoni'
The guests and their host on recovering from
their cstonishment formed themselves into a
committee OF WAYS and means, the practical
result Of their deliberations being that a skilled
veterinary surgeon was Immediately sent for
and the dog isolated in little room to himself
and subjected to such treatment as the surgeon
in his wisdom deemed called for the object
being to remedy the error of the dog. But il
was all to no purpose. The pointer seemed to
be none the worse for having lunched off a dia-
mond; indeed, it seemed, il anything more
lively and satisfied than before. The guests
patiently waited till late in the evening in the
hope of seeing the end, but the end was not
yet. The owner of the dog then agreed to
leave the animal in seclusion at his hosts house
until the ring should be recovered. which he
naturally believed would be in the course of
that night. But though the night came and
went, day dawned and faded into night and
five more days and nights dragged their slow
length along, the ring did not make its appear
ance.
At last the owner Of the pointer wrote to say
that the animal had been sufficiently punished
for his involuntary error aud that had he swal-
lowed Cleopatra's pearl itself that would not
JUSTIFY his being condemned to perpetual i'm
prisonment. He requested, therefore, that his
dog should be sent back without DELAY. The
sportsman, on the other hand, refused to view
the matter in that light, but, being at the same
time laudably DESTROYS Of satisfying what he
believed to be the demands of equity, offered
to purchase the pointer and then to proceed
to do what he liked with his own. This the
owner of the dog would not hear of and he in
sisted all the more peremptorily on getting
his property back. The sportsman then pro-
posed to have a surgical operation performed
by one of the celebrities of the Viennese medi-
cal world, at his own expense, and undertook
to deposit a reasonable sum of money as COM
pensation for the loss of the animal should he
come to grief under the surgeons knife.
The proposal had the effect of rousing all the
ire of the dogs master, who now goes so far as
to maintain that the circumstance that the dog
has not yet restored the ring in spite of the
veterinarys endeavors ought to be judged to
outweigh the evidence of his eyesight, which
tells him that the dog did swallow the ring and
that the host and his guests were victims of an
optical deiusion. The sportsman thereupon
refused to discuss the matter any further, and
notified his intention to keep the too impulsive
pointer imprisoned until such time as he re-
covers his ring The owner of the dog then
took an action against his former friend, and
the case will come up for trial in a few DAYS,
unless compromised in the meantime, and il
must be admitted that Solomon in all his glory
never had a more knotty question to solve than
that which the viennese judges will be called
up0n In decide