'Murphy' A Message to Dog Lovers   By: Ernest Gambier-Parry (1853-1936)

"MURPHY"

[Illustration: His dog. by Him.]

"MURPHY" A MESSAGE TO DOG LOVERS

BY MAJOR GAMBIER PARRY

With two drawings by the author

NEW YORK MITCHELL KENNERLEY 1913

COPYRIGHT 1913 BY MITCHELL KENNERLEY PRINTED IN AMERICA

TO THAT VAST HOST IN THE HUMAN FAMILY THAT LOVES DOGS AND THAT INCLUDES WITHIN ITS RANKS THE GOOD, THE GREAT, AND THE INSIGNIFICANT THESE PAGES ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY ONE OF THE COMMON RANK AND FILE

ILLUSTRATIONS

"HIS DOG" Frontispiece "ALAS!" Facing p. 192

"MURPHY" A MESSAGE TO DOG LOVERS

I

Yes. He was born in the first week of June, in the year 1906. Quite a short while ago, as you see that is, as we men count time but long enough, just as a child's life is occasionally long enough, to affect the lives ay, more, the characters of some who claimed to be his betters on this present earth, with certainties in some dim and distant heaven that might or might not have a corner here or there for dogs.

His parentage was that of a royal house in purity of strain and length of pedigree, and he first saw the light in the yard of a mill upon the river, where the old wheel had groaned for generations or dripped in silence, according as the water rose or fell, and corn came in to be ground.

There were others like him in appearance in the yard; on the eyot on which the mill buildings stood, gorgeous in many coloured tiles; round the dwelling house, or in a large wired enclosure close by. His master, the Over Lord, bred dogs of his kind for the nonce, not necessarily for profit, but because, with a great heart for dogs, he chose to, claiming indeed the proud boast that not a single dog of his class walked these Islands that was not of his strain and claiming that, moreover, truly.

At one period there might have been counted, in and around this mill yard, no less than thirty eight dogs, young and middle aged, and all more or less closely related. But while this number was much above the average, the congestion that arose thereby was chargeable with the single unhappy episode in Murphy's life, concerning which he often spoke to me in after days, and the effect of which he carried to the end. Of this, however, more later.