The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-17

so on. I have heard him guess more kinds of dog than I ever knew existed.
 As soon as he saw Murchison's dog he guessed it was a pure bred shepherd with a trace of Eskimo. Massett, who thinks he knows as much about dogs as Brownlee does, didn't believe it. The mor>ent he saw the pup he said it was pedigree dog, half St Bernard and half Spitz.
 Brownlee and Massett used to sit on Murchison's steps after supper and point out the proofs to each other. They would argue for hours.
 "Al1 right Massett," Brownlee would say but you cant fool mel Look at that nosei If that isn't a shepherd nose I'll eat it. And see that tail; Did you ever see tail like that on a Spitz? | That is an Eskimo tail as sure as am a foot high.
 Tail fiddlesticks! Massett would re- ply, You can't tell anything by a pups tail. Look at his earsl There is St. Der nard for you And see his lower jaw. Isn't that Spitz? I'll leave it to Murchi- son. Isn't that lower jaw Spitz, Mur- chison?"
 Then all three would tackle the puppy and open it's mouth and feel it's jaw, and the pup would wriggle and squeak, and back away opening and shutting, it's mouth to see if it's works had been damaged
 "All right" Brownlee would say, you wait year or two and you'll see!''
 About three months later the pup was as big as ordinary full grown dog, and his coat looked like a compromise between a calf-sl5n and one of these hair brush doormats you use to wipe your feet on in muddy weather. He did not look like the same pup. He was long-limbed and awkward and useless and homely as shopworn 5O-cent yellow plush mani cure set Murchison began to feel that he didn't really need dog, but Brownies was an enthusiastic as ever. He would go over to Murchison's fairly oozing dog knowledge.
 "I'll tell you what tha+ dog is," he would say. That dog is a cross between a Great Dane and an English deerhound. You've got a very valuable dog there Murchison, very valuable dog. He comes of fine stock on both sides and it is a cross you don't often sec I never saw it, and I've seen all kinds of crossed dogs"
 Then Massett would drop in and walk around the dog admirably for a few min utes and absorb his beauties.
 "Murcbison,' he would say, "do you know what thai dog is? That dog Is a pure cross between a Siberian wolfhound and Newfoundland. You treat that dog right and you'll have fortune in him. Why, pure Siberian wolfhound is worth thousand dollars. and a good-a really good Newfoundland, mind you-is worth two thousand, and you've got both in one dog That's three thousand dollars worth of dog!'
 In the next six months Fluff grew. He broadened out and heightened and height ened, and every day or two Brownlee or Massett would discover a new strain of dog in him. They pointed out to Murchi- son all the marks by which he could tell the different kinds of dog that were com bined in Fluff, and every time they dis covered new one they held a sort of jubilee, and bragged and swelled their chests They seemed to spend all their time thinking up odd and strange kinds of dog that Fluff had in him. Brownlee discovered the traces of Cuban blood hound, Kamatchatka hound beagle, Prague de Bengale and Thibet mastif, but Massett first traced the staghound, Turkoman watch dog, dachshund and harrier in him.
 Murchison, not being doggish man. never claimed to have noticed any Of these family resemblanees and never said what he thought the dog really was, until a month or two later, when he gave it as his opinion that the dog was a cross be- tween a wolf Shetland pony and hyena. It was about that time that Fluff had to be chained. He had begun to eat other dogs, and children and chickens. The first night Murchison chained him to his kennel Fluff walked half a mile, taking the kennel along, and then only stopped because the kennel got tangled with a lamppost. The man who brought him home claimed that Fluff was nearly as- phyxiated when he found him; said he gnawed half through the lamppost and