A little girl stopped beside me, stared through the window and then ran off at top speed. Within a couple of minutes half-a-dozen youngsters were peering into the shop, and a pair of them marched in, consulting earnestly as they went. The news spread; more children arrived. I distributed a largesse of pennies which gave me a popularity I have never achieved before. The street seemed to take on a different aspect. I almost liked it. * * * * * AN OLD DOG. There can be no doubt about it. Not merely is Soo-ti getting to be an old dog, but he has already got there. He _is_ an old dog. Yet the change in the case of this beloved little Pekinese has been so gradual that until it was accomplished few of us noticed it. Yesterday, as it seemed, Soo-ti was a young dog, capable of holding his own for frolics and spirits with any Pekinese that ever owned the crown of the road and refused to stir from it though all the hooters of Europe endeavoured to blast him off it. To-day he is still a challenger of motor-cars; but he hurls his defiance with less assurance and has been seen to retire before the advance of a motor-bicycle. Moreover, there are other signs of what his master calls, let us hope with accuracy, a _cruda viridisque senectus_. Quite a short time ago his muzzle, like the rest of him, was as black as ebony. Now he wears a pair of thick white moustachios, which are comparable only with those worn by that great chieftain, Monsieur le Maréchal JOFFRE. In another way too our little dog gives proof that his years are advancing. He used to welcome ecstatically the moment of the _promenade_; not that he intended thus to show any deference to the humans who were inviting him to take a walk, but that he thought it was a fine manly thing to do, and one that might bring about that fight of his against a neighbouring and detested deer-hound to which he looked forward as to one of his unachieved pleasures. He therefore fell not more than one hundred yards behind his accompanists, and when this was pointed out to him made a very creditable effort to hurry up and rejoin. Now, however, when taken for a duty-walk, he still barks a little at the outset, but thereafter begins at once to lag, and is found in an armchair when the party returns. It is vain to remind him that in the old days he was called the little black feather for the lightness of his gait when puffed along by the gusts of a fierce nor'-easter. Here is one of the complimentary stanzas that were lavished upon him by his young mistress:-- "Attend to your duty, My brave little Soo-ti, There isn't much sun in the sky: But we've sported together In all kinds of weather, My little black feather and I." It would be quite useless to lure him out with verse, and plain prose is equally ineffective when once he has made up his mind that he doesn't mean to move.