Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 148, February 3, 1915Various
History
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 148, February 3, 1915
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
Jimmy showed him the pork-butcher's shop where he did it, and the
man said if Jimmy would wait a minute he would go and buy the dog
some German fruit. Jimmy said the man bought a large kind of sausage
which had a red husk. He then stooped down and said, "Good old chap,
I confer upon you the Order of the Faithful Sausage, 1st class, and
if you catch another German spy I'll give you a season ticket." When
Jimmy's bloodhound saw the red sausage he began to bay, and he hurled
himself upon it with much vigour, Jimmy says. The man watched Jimmy's
bloodhound working, and he said, "_Magna est fidelitas et prevalebit_,"
which he said meant that "Old Faithful would down the Germans every
time."
Jimmy calls his bloodhound Faithful now, and he is keener than ever on
catching another German spy.
Jimmy says he thought he was on the track of one the other day. He
was walking down a road when suddenly Faithful began straining at the
leash, as if he scented one. But it wasn't a German after all; it was a
goat. It was in a field. Jimmy said he made sure it was a German until
he saw it.
The goat was having its tea on the far side of the field. Jimmy hadn't
seen the goat before, so he loosed Faithful at it. Faithful bounded
towards the goat very hard at first, and then stopped and began to
deploy.
Jimmy said the goat was very surprised when it saw Faithful and jumped
three feet into the air all at once. Jimmy says Faithful makes things
do like that. You see Faithful was crawling hand over hand towards it
on the grass, and the goat looked as if it expected Faithful to go off
suddenly.
Then the goat said "Yes! Yes!" several times with its head and began to
moo.
Jimmy said the goat must have been winding up the starting handle, for
it suddenly slipped in the clutch and got into top gear in five yards.
It was a flexible goat, Jimmy says. Faithful is a good runner; it has a
kind of side-stroke action when it runs fast, and this puzzled the goat
and made it skid a bit on the grass.
Jimmy sat on the gate and watched them. After five times round the
field the goat sat down and looked nonplussed.
Jimmy knows all about goats; he knows what to do with them, and he
showed me. He got it so tame that it would feed out of your hand. It
ate half a newspaper one day and it made it very fiery. Jimmy said it
was the War news. We were trying to harness it to a perambulator Jimmy
had borrowed. Jimmy said it had to have a bell on its neck so that
people would know it was coming, just like the Alps.
Jimmy said goats could jump from one Alp to the other, and they always
did that in Switzerland and it sounded very pretty in the evening.
I hadn't got a little bell that tinkled so I brought the dinner bell,
and we tied it on to the goat's neck with a rope. Jimmy said it would
make the goat feel glad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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