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SEVERAL years ago there were two seals in the “Zoo” garden at Amsterdam
which were so fond of their keeper that they could recognize his voice a
long way off, and would go to meet him.
These seals also became attached to an old gentleman and his little
granddaughter, who often went to see them in company with a little
woolly dog, and who always took the seals something nice to eat. These
animals were kept in a large pond, and they would come out of the water
on seeing their friends and sit down with them to have a good time on
the sand.
The small dog was very lively on these occasions, and he and the seals
would frolic together as though they belonged to the same family, and
shared the fruit and cakes from the little girl’s basket.
One day, however, just in the midst of their fun, the dog fell into the
pond, and, after struggling for a moment in the water, he sank. The
seals uttered a cry of dismay as he disappeared, and then, flopping to
the pond, they plunged in. In an instant the larger one had seized the
half-drowned dog, and, carrying him very tenderly in his mouth, placed
the dripping animal at his mistress’s feet.
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