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You have Bingo now definitely a Pekinese. That being so, I may refer to his ancestors, always an object of veneration among these Easterns. I speak of (hats off, please!) Ch. Goodwood Lo.

Of course you know (I didn’t myself till last week) that “Ch.” stands for “Champion.” On the male side Champion Goodwood Lo is Bingo’s great-great-grandfather. On the female side the same animal is Bingo’s great-grandfather. One couldn’t be a poodle after that. A fortnight after Bingo came to us we found in a Pekinese book a photograph of Goodwood Lo. How proud we all were! Then we saw above it, “Celebrities of the Past. The Late–“

Champion Goodwood Lo was no more! In one moment Bingo had lost both his great-grandfather and his great-great-grandfather!

We broke it to him as gently as possible, but the double shock was too much, and he passed the evening in acute depression. Annoyed with my tactlessness in letting him know anything about it, I kicked Humphrey off his stool. Humphrey, I forgot to say, has a squeak if kicked in the right place. He squeaked.

Bingo, at that time still uncertain of his destiny, had at least the courage of the lion. Just for a moment he hesitated. Then with a pounce he was upon Humphrey.

Till then I had regarded Humphrey–save for his power of rolling the eyes and his habit of taking long jumps from the music-stool to the book-case–as rather a sedentary character. But in the fight which followed he put up an amazingly good resistance. At one time he was underneath Bingo; the next moment he had Bingo down; first one, then the other, seemed to gain the advantage. But blood will tell. Humphrey’s ancestry is unknown; I blush to say that it may possibly be German. Bingo had Goodwood Lo to support him–in two places. Gradually he got the upper hand; and at last, taking the reluctant Humphrey by the ear, he dragged him laboriously beneath the sofa. He emerged alone, with tail wagging, and was taken on to his mistress’s lap. There he slept, his grief forgotten.

So Humphrey was found a job. Whenever Bingo wants exercise, Humphrey plants himself in the middle of the room, his eyes cast upwards in an affectation of innocence. “I’m just sitting here,” says Humphrey; “I believe there’s a fly on the ceiling.” It is a challenge which no great-grandson of Goodwood Lo could resist. With a rush Bingo is at him. “I’ll learn you to stand in my way,” he splutters. And the great dust-up begins….

Brave little Bingo! I don’t wonder that so warlike a race as the Japanese has called a province after him.