In conclusion, I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness for particulars of the works of many writers to Mr. Oscar Fay Adams’ valuable little work, _Handbook of American Authors_. The dates which appear in this book are chiefly taken from Appleton’s _Dictionary of American Biography_. J. B. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE HUMOUR OF AMERICA. ---------- _MY DOG._ [Illustration: “KOSCIUSKO AND I FROLICKED AROUND.”] I HAVE owned quite a number of dogs in my life, but they are all dead now. Last evening I visited my dog cemetery—just between the gloaming and the shank of the evening. On the biscuit-box cover that stands at the head of a little mound fringed with golden rod and pickle bottles, the idler may still read these lines, etched in red chalk by a trembling hand— LITTLE KOSCIUSKO, .........NOT DEAD......... BUT JERKED HENCE BY REQUEST. S. Y. L. (SEE YOU LATER.) I do not know why he was called Kosciusko. I do not care. I only know that his little grave stands out there while the gloaming gloams and the soughing winds are soughing. Do you ask why I am alone here and dogless in this weary world? I will tell you, anyhow. It will not take long, and it may do me good: Kosciusko came to me one night in winter, with no baggage, and unidentified. When I opened the door he came in as though he had left something in there by mistake and had returned for it. He stayed with us two years as a watch-dog. In a desultory way, he was a good watch-dog. If he had watched other people with the same unrelenting scrutiny with which he watched me, I might have felt his death more keenly than I do now. The second year that little Kosciusko was with us, I shaved off a full beard one day while down town, put on a clean collar and otherwise disguised myself, intending to surprise my wife. Kosciusko sat on the front porch when I returned. He looked at me as a cashier of a bank does when a newspaper man goes in to get a suspiciously large cheque cashed. He did not know me. I said, “Kosciusko, have you forgotten your master’s voice?” He smiled sarcastically, showing his glorious wealth of mouth, but still sat there as though he had stuck his tail into the door-steps and couldn’t get it out. So I waived the formality of going in at the front door, and went around to the portcullis, on the off side of the house, but Kosciusko was there when I arrived. The cook, seeing a stranger lurking around the manor-house, encouraged Kosciusko to come and gorge himself with a part of my leg, which he did. Acting on this hint I went to the barn.