The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-03-12

his mothers pet poodle dog, the one
 with the bifurcated hair and the
 spiked tail.''
 Jinmylegs was looking at the re-
 tiring back of an officer, which same
 back was disappearing through the swing door leading to the recruiting office elevator.
 She was a great fancier of poodle
 dogs, his mother Legs went on. "I
 knew her well, and as a dog fancier
 there never was her equal. She liked
 them all ways, the hairless, two leg
 ged kind, as well as the hairy four legged beastieS. That chaps father
 was a canine wonder. She never en-
 tered him in no dog show, so far
 as I ever heard, but he'd a taken
 a prize if she had. His son too. The
 boy oughter gone into some other
 service than the navy, though. This
 ain't no place for him-nor his dad.
 ~Tve told you about his dad
 Lousy Whiskers we called him;
 Lieutenant-Comman Bun he was
 on the navy roster, same as this son
 of his. The only difference between
 them is that the old fellow wore
 whiskers and was a man for all his
 psalm singing, while this one is clean
 shaved and is-what I called him, the breathin' image of his mothers pet
 poodle.
 'ENow like pood1es. like dogs of all sorts and there was never a ships
 mascot but cottoned to me stronger than to most men aboard, next after
 his master. But likes dogs and men to amount to somethin', I do, which probably is the reason why got into trouble over a poodle old Lousy
 Whiskers was a bringin' to his missus. It was one of these here hairless
 Mexican dogs which he had picked up in Tampico or Vera Cruz-no it was PernanFbuco and it trailed round the ship for months till we doused the homeward bound pennant | at the old Brooklyn navy yard and | called it a day.
 'It was a pesky pup, bigger than the average run of them dogs, and
 with ugly liver co1ored spots scattered | about it's carcass which otherwise was purple and ornamented with some stragg1y upstanding hairs. Each hair did sentry duty all by it's lonesome, as old Bun used to say when he'd sentenced me to ten days solitary for being ID. and D. on return from lib- erty.
 'FIts disposition was as mean as it's 1 appearance. That dog must d be- 1 longed to some Mexican hidalgo O l ancient lineage, which is the very meanest kind of Spiggoty know of. The old man refused to name the | brute, sayin' that his wife would at 1 tend to them. details, so the homely | beast ran about the ship, Snappin' at | everybody that tried to be friendly l and answerin' to no name, not even | the various and sundry ones invented | on the spur of the moment by the 1 1at-feet and leathernecks on board 1 the old wagon.
 swell, sir, after leaving Pernambu- | co that trip we starts for Cape Town, i which is some long reach, and the
 ship did her darndest to roll round, 1 under and over, as the sayin' goes Roll, she'd roll all O forty-f1ve de-
 grees each way, and if any one tells you that ain't possible just let them | go to sea in a Gloucester fisherman l or make a trip in the old Mississippi, ] the grandfther of the present ship O ] that name. When she'd start heavin' | she go slow, as much as to say don't mean nothin' much,' but pretty soon l she give a little wigg1e and you q l begin sliding athwart ship, accom- 1 panied by everytfin' else movable on | the deck. Weather roll or lea roll, it | didn't make no difference to her. "Our hairless Mexican, being a 1 poor sailor, like the rest of his race l was disagreeab1y affected by the con tortions of the ship. He didn't get
 actually seasick, you understand, but
 the motion unused up his feehn' s
 disturbed his insides and annoyed his
 dignity Consequently he'd get worse
 than usual after one of the rollin
 spells, and it was as much as a, mans
 life was worth to go to the shippers
 door on a message when friend hair
 less was on the rampage.
 "We had a rough crew sAoca-a the old Mississippi them days, and Broth CT Bun wasn't any too popular witf them on account of his pronounced prohibition views and his everlastin preaehin'-he was a Plymouth broth CT when ashore, and he carried the disease with him when afloat-w1tf the result that he was the best dis liked officer ever sailed with-bar rim half a dozen or so-
 ''Even if they had liked the olC
 man, the crew couldn't have stoo' for that pup long. Twant in humal nature But fee1in as they diC toward Brother Bun and regardin; that hairless Mexican wonder the wa, they did, it's always been a myster- s to me that what happened didn' happen long before it did.
 s '"The climax come, as they say il s the movies, when the Hairless On bit Jim McVey on the ankle one da A while Jim was engaged in holystonir z the quater deck for his sins-Jin' $ 5 not the dogs. Jim swore he >hadn' 3 done nothing to the dog before tn
 bite, but admitted under pressur n from the skipper that atterards h
 had shied the holyston' in the genera
 1 direction of the dog before reachin for an examin' his ankle. If he'd hi f the dog in all probability nothir e more would have come of it, bu \ havin' missed the brute, and the sa # water gettin' into his sore spots, Jim Q anger mounted and mounted, an n that night at mess I could hear hir IF from my table addressing his mes l. mates on the subject of dogs |. general and of hairless Mexican dog l in particular. I could gathe l. that McVey didn't hold with dog Fl ashore or af1oat, most certainly nc ir afHoat even as ships mascots. As fe a the shippers wife's poodle, the th1ns n Jim said would have curled each SCI " arate upstanding hair on that an1m' = l I,o oo17lI understood