Benson's father was generally acknowledged to be a "comedian." No one ever saw him in a temper, or heard him speak a sharp word. He had a droll, woebegone face that never smiled, but a face everybody--from the mayor to the poorest mill hand--loved and respected. How often Benson had come in from school, ill-tempered and sour-visaged at something that had gone wrong in the class-room, only to have that droll face of his father's and some equally droll remark upset all his dignity and indignation into laughter and consequent good nature. "One at a time, boys, just one at a time, or I shall have bustificated eardrums! What is it all about?" Then they told him, but, it must be confessed, not one at a time. "A club, eh?" he questioned, straddling a chair and leaning his arms on the back. "What kind of a club, pleasure club, improvement club, sporting club, what?" "That's the trouble; we can't hit on it!" they chorused. For a moment he sat silent, his round, childish eyes surveying the world that hung on his very first words. "I saw a queer thing as I came up the street to-night", he began, seemingly having forgotten the subject in hand. "A dray-horse was standing before the mill gates, and frisking about its heels was a dandy little cocker spaniel, prettiest little dog you ever saw. The horse got tired leaning on one leg, I guess, for he shifted his position, and, in bringing down his left hind leg, he just pinned the little cocker's foot to the ground with his big hoof. Cocker yelled. Worst row I ever heard--until I came into this room. But what do you suppose Mr. Horse did? Just lifted gently his left fore-hoof, but the squealing did not stop. Then he lifted his right fore-hoof; still the squealing went on. 'Thinks I,' said the horse to himself, 'it must be my right hind-hoof,' so he lifted that. 'No, sir,' he told himself; 'sure, it's my left-hinder'; and lifting that, he released the poor dog, who dashed around to the horse's head, leaping up to his nose, and saying, 'Thank you!' over and over.* And the big, clumsy dray-horse just drew his long face a little longer, and said: 'Never mind, old chap! I didn't mean to hurt you; I'm sorry.' Then came the drayman out of the mill--a nice, considerate, heart-warm, intelligent human being. Oh, yes! we humans know so much more than animals, don't we, fellows? And because the big, patient, kindly dray-horse had, in its restlessness, moved twenty feet from the spot the driver left him at, that creature that is supposed to have known better, just took his whip and licked and lashed that glorious animal, yelling in a frenzy of temper, 'I'll teach you to move, when I leave you! You--' Well, boys, you nor I don't care to hear all he did say." [*Fact observed by the writer's brother.] "The brute!" "The big human hulk!" "The sneak!" "And he called himself a man!" were some of the phrases growled out by the indignant boys.