< Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu
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A1G-ZAGS AT TR 200, 2.0

military Bob, i that vile nose eage but there! e turns his head the other way, and tries o Jook as thoush he hated buns., e tries not to see them, but they elisten, gloriously brown and sticky, from all sides somchow there are always more huns about when that muzzle is on. And Bob becomes o areater misanthrope than is natural to him ; which, speaking of a Li:amc:l, 15 saying much. But what living thing in all these Gardens could spend half its waking hours in painfully assuming a contempt for buns without becoming a misanthrope 2 |

Rose, who is cross-bred, is, in sheer spite of the hint the word carries, rather an amiable creature, and very rarcly cross for a camcel. There has even been no necessity to give her a nosc-ring. She is not always of an industrious appearance, having a habit of lying about in an Orientally lazy heap-so Orieatal a o et 1o heap that one instinetively looks for the hookah which Rosc ought,

i the circumstances, to be smoking.

The local flics try a little annoyance now and again, but they have lcarned a great respect for a camel’s length of reach. 1 remember a country bluchottle - Very raw and self-confident country blucbottle —who made a rash onslaught upon Rose without proper consider- ation. 1 knew this fly 1 had met him onece before, when he madly attempted to burgle atin pienic hox contaiing nothing,

L felt mterested to observe how he would get on with Rosc, knowing well that, without asking advice of any regular local blucbottle, he would assume her P to be a mere scraggy town cow. This is just what e he did. - Rosc stood, looking perfectly amiable all camels '3{.1‘;,,1'? look amiable; it s a part of their svstem and, to an -, 72Fie unaceustomed cye, quite unconscious of the country blue- 27 bottle’s existence. Still) there was a certain optical twinkle 7 which should have warned that Dluchottle, Dut, heedless all, he rushed forward and made to settle on Rose’s shoulder. With a nonchalant swing the near hind leg came up, and that blue-

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bottle was brushed off his legs. Fle buzzed about for a little while, NI

puzzled. This was quite a new maotion in cow-legs - some town improve- w0y ment, cvidently. So he settled —at least he tricd near the top joint of that / hind-leg, where the foot couldn’t reach him. Rosc looked calmly ahcad at nothing, and moved no limb but the near fore-leg, which swung quietly back, and—

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that blucbottle was projected into space at the instant his feet were Janding.,

He gathered himself together, and sat on the roof of the - stable to think it over. Meanwhile Rosce stood at case, without e 7~ afurther movement. The blucbottle considered the question

strategically, and made up his mind that on the chest, just before the joints of the fore-legs, nothing could touch him. He tried it. But hee only arrived on the spot simultancously with o hmd-foot, which swung neatly out

e between the fore-legs and drove that L . Blhuchbottle mto the surroundimg atmos- " ;fifL“\ phere once more. And sull Rosc 2 Moan gazed amiably at nothing.

R A Losing his temper he nide straght k\:';‘:_‘?}m for her nose s but the nose never moved. The hind Teg came up once \S‘*":iz) more, however, and made the rout complete. Baffled and disgusted, the rash Bluchottle flew off in a pet, over the rails dividing Rosce from

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