Alfred is dead and with him has gone John's last efforts at making and
training pets. It has simply been one disappointment after another.
There was Charles the monkey. Charles could write his own name with
a pen and digest the creamiest shaving-stick without making a lather.
There was Joey, the billy-goat, such an entertaining fellow, who
could pick up and set down anything with his horns from a basket to a
dustman. And then there was Livo--immortal Livo. There never was such
a down-at-heel and unscrupulous young ruffian of a mongrel terrier
as Livo, nor one that more completely convinced people that he was a
gentleman of blood and a pure-souled spiritualist.
Of course there were heaps of other pets as well, but just as they
seemed about to reach that stage of human intelligence so earnestly
desired by their young master they all suddenly died, even as Alfred,
the last of a long list, gave up the ghost yesterday.
Alfred was a trout. Not your ordinary fly-jumping kind of trout,
because there is never anything ordinary about John's pets. Alfred,
for instance, had not lived in water for three months. He simply had
no use for the stuff, and, as for jumping at a fly, his nerves were
far too good for that sort of thing.
His attachment to John was complete. He would take food from no one
else and the presence of his eight-year-old master in the long grass
was sufficient to bring him erect on his tail, where he would wag his
fins and make strange noises in cordial welcome. In many respects he
was the most superior pet John has ever had. He could affect boredom
and his exhibition of the glad eye was considered by John's eldest
sister to be positively deadly. It is, in fact, true to say that his
keen desire to adopt as many human habits as possible often led us to
mistake him for one of ourselves.
John, however, was not quite satisfied with his pupil until one bright
morning last week when Alfred displayed the first signs of having
acquired the Directional Wriggle. Strange as it may sound, this very
human trout actually wriggled after John for a distance of five yards.
Three days later he pursued his master to the village post-office and
beat him by a short gill.
Yesterday, however, Alfred excelled himself. John had left early for
the stream, and being in a hurry took advantage of the thin plank
crossing. Now the plank is very slippery and had been placed over the
spot where the stream is deepest. John crossed it carefully enough,
but looking back for a second he suddenly noticed that Alfred was
following him. Before he could raise his voice in protest the trout
had mounted the plank and was wriggling across it. Then, horror
of horrors! in the middle of the plank the wretched fish suddenly
lurched, lost its footing, plunged into the water and was drowned.
* * * * *