One of the luckiest days of my life was certainly the one on which there stepped into the house the dog that goes in private by the name of Fizzy, but that is known to the world as Champion Windfall. I did not expect it, and I had been hoping for a good dog so long that I had almost given up all expectation of ever seeing one to my liking. I had been advertising steadily for some months for a first-rate dog, and the dealers had been crazy to catch me with second-class first-prize winners, when I got a letter enclosing the pedigree of a dog combining the strains I liked best. This was merely a house dog which had never been shown, and I had him up on approval.

As I came up to London from the country, the butler met me in the hall with a mysterious smile on his face. "There is a very nice dog downstairs, Ma'am," he said. "Oh," said I, " all right, bring him up," and up he came and was put down in the middle of the drawing-room, where he stood with every hair bristling in defiance, and my breath was fairly taken away. I need hardly say that within ten minutes I had posted the cheque and sat down to make friends with my new purchase. One of his former owners was said to be wrong in the head and used to kick and ill-use the dog, and I found him extremely suspicious of all men and always on the defensive, but finding himself well treated, he attached himself to us with a quite unreasoning frenzy of devotion. If I go away for a day without a formal good-bye, leaving him in charge of some special person, instead of appearing pleased to see me when I come home, he growls and stiffens himself if I attempt to touch him, and will not notice me for hours, but if I " explain " beforehand he may condescend to greet me with affectionate, if somewhat distant, dignity. The terrors I have been through with that dog no tongue can describe. The first thing he did was to get distemper, and I nursed him night and day for three months.

At the end of that time he understood all I said to him, and I had only to repeat the names of things he might want, and when I came to the right one he would bark. This he will still do, when in the humour. When he wants a thing he comes and barks and pulls my dress. I then say, " What do you want? Water? Biscuit? Do you want to go out? Do you want your ball? " And he waits till I get to the right thing and then rushes to the door growling.

The next thing he did was to fall off my bed three times in succession, and I devised a plan of tying him to the middle of the bed's foot. One night I was awakened by a slight noise, and to my horror found him dangling by his collar and nearly strangled, the maid having altered the length of the strap without my having noticed it.

He then distinguished himself one day when I was out by getting hold of two tubes of oil paint, and when I came home I found his face covered with Chinese vermilion and his tongue and throat a brilliant blue. A painter friend coming in like a Job's comforter assured me that Chinese vermilion was a virulent poison, being compounded of mercury and prussic acid, and as for Prussian blue - well, I really can't remember what he didn't say about it. Be this as it may then, the dog was not even sick, and pranced about like a mischievous elf when I tried to wash his face. Some months after that he choked himself with a crumb and rolled over apparently dead, his tongue black and swollen and his eyes glazed. I saved him by shaking his head downwards, as a last despairing effort and without the least hope of success, thus getting the obstruction out of his throat Another accident might have ended his career for he jumped on the top of a high "nursery" fender and, overbalancing, fell right into the fire on his back.

I had him out in the twentieth part of a second, but I felt that if this sort of thing was to continue, I should certainly develop heart disease from the constant shocks.

His most serious misadventure was when a retriever attacked him in the road and shook him like a rat I rushed to the rescue and got thrown down and badly knocked about, after which the retriever seized Windfall by the throat again, and I only saved him by jamming my arm into the brute's throat and forcing him to leave his hold. I managed to cover Windfall with my dress and knelt over him beating off the retriever from my face as best I could. The timely interference of a friend ended the matter happily. Windfall, beyond being covered with dust and in a perfect fury, was unhurt. I heard that the dog eventually attacked a little girl and killed a dog she had with her and had to be shot. Windfall's last accident was a few months ago, when a pony cart overturned on the top of us both.

Windfall is a most charming dog to live with, and it is for this reason that I have refused all offers for him.

He is full of delightful little jokes, which he invents for himself. One of his chief jokes is to pull his master's cap off, and he will invent all kinds of dodges to get within reach of it. It is not the cap he wants, but the fun of pulling it off, and directly he has got it he prances round and barks till it is put on again. This led to my having to tip a railway porter at Victoria, as I was carrying Windfall under my arm and a porter bent down and put a bag beside me. Fizzy took this as an invitation to a game and gave a snatch at his cap, but unfortunately missing it, seized the porter by the hair, startling him nearly into a fit. He took it most good-naturedly and pocketed a shilling and went away smiling and rubbing his head. Fizzy has a great objection to my being touched by a stranger, and once at a station a rude red-faced woman came elbowing into me with the violence peculiar to Bank Holiday travellers and the customers at a large draper's sale. In this case Fizzy resented the onslaught by catching her sleeve, whereupon she turned upon me like a fury and told me I ought to have a "dangerous brute like that muzzled" Another of Fizzy's jokes was a source of much misunderstanding till we found out what he wanted.

He suddenly took to flying at his master whenever he put him to bed, and looked so very much in earnest that he got one or two whippings. It turned out, however, that all he wanted was that his master should pretend to be afraid and try to take away his cushion, whereupon he works himself into a frenzy of sham rage, and pretends to bite him. We found that, if allowed to catch hold, the dog never really bit at all, and the whole thing was a game which has since been repeated every night with fresh gusto. When his master goes away Fizzy goes straight to bis cushion and looks depressed, as he absolutely refuses to play this game with me.

His great merit is his unbounded cheek. He won't be suppressed and his strength is something extraordinary. He guards my clothes or property with passionate jealousy, and if anyone comes to take anything of mine he will rush after them and hang on to their skirts with all his might.

Like the dogs of Constantinople, he has a great idea of the laws of boundaries. For instance, he is most polite to James, the house boy, so long as he is in the pantry, but let him cross the threshold of the swing door which opens on to the stairs, and there is a fearful uproar as James is chivied away. This is all a game to which James very good-naturedly lends himself. In the same way Fizzy is always respectful to my nursery maids in the nursery, but he won't have them on the stairs nor in the pantry. I have had several and he always treats them in the same way. Out of doors he is always amiable to everybody, evidently considering it neutral ground. He has also no objection to the housekeeper going anywhere in the house so long as she does not touch anything he thinks I am using.

A tennis ball is his favourite toy, and he will behave like a lunatic if he thinks there is one to be got anywhere, and I once found him wandering round a bush on his hind legs and eventually saw a tennis ball on the top of it He also suddenly discovered that the top one of the stone balustrades was really a ball, and of course wanted to have it, and his efforts to get hold of my husband's punch ball, which is about six times his own size, are most entertaining.

He becomes madly excited over letters, and always seizes the empty envelopes when the post bag is opened. He keeps us all so lively that I do not know what we should do without him.

It is rather curious that he is extraordinarily fond of fruit, and has been known to sit under a pear tree barking at the pears in the hope of inducing them to fall down. He also has a passion for ginger and for ices. If he ever does anything which he knows to be wrong he looks greatly ashamed, but if I continue scolding him after he considers he has apologised enough, he puts on a defiant air and begins to growl as much as to say, " Well, I said I was sorry, and hang it all, it isn't as bad as all that," a trait which may be noticed in human beings whose relations overdo the scolding.