THE WAR DOGS' PARTY.

I am a plain dog that barks his mind and believes in calling a bone
a bone, not one of your sentimental sort that allows the tail--that
uncontrollable seat of the emotions--to govern the head. I voted
Coalition, of course. As a veteran--three chevrons and the Croix de
Guerre--I could hardly refuse to support the man who above all others
helped us war dogs to beat the Bosch. But to say that I am satisfied
with the way things are going on--that's a mouse of a very different
colour, as the phrase goes. A terrier person who claims to own the
PRIME MINISTER and has been very busy demanding what he calls our
invaluable suffrages buttonholed me the other day outside the tripe
shop and commenced to tell me all the wonderful things that we dogs
would get if we only elected a strong Coalition Government--better
biscuits, larger kennels, equal rabbits for all and I don't know what
else. But when I asked him plainly, "Are you in favour of keeping out
the dachshunds?" the fellow hedged and said the question was not so
important as some people seemed to think, and that financial interests
had to be considered.

And that's how the War Dogs' Party came to be formed, for when
they heard how the land lay some of the influential dogs in our
neighbourhood called a meeting in Jorrocks' Mews and elected me
chairman. We decided that membership should not be confined to dogs
who had actually seen service at the Front, but that any dog who had
faced the trials of the War in the spirit of true patriotism should be
eligible. A slight difficulty was encountered in the case of the Irish
terrier who owns the butcher's shop and notoriously has never been
on bone rations, some of the young hotheads claiming that he was not
eligible. But Snap is a very popular dog, and when he is not brooding