Among the many juvenile friends with whom I have had more or less
correspondence, as the editor of a young people's magazine, is one who
resides at Saratoga Springs. I passed a few days at this watering-place
last summer, and called on Master William, for that is the name of my
friend--who introduced to me a pet squirrel of his, called Dick. Dick
did not perform many very surprising feats while I was present, though I
did not at the time set that circumstance down as any evidence of a want
of smartness on the part of the squirrel; for I well remembered that it
was a very common thing for pets sustaining even a much higher rank in
the scale of intelligence, to disappoint the expectations of those
persons who think all the world of them, when they--the pets--are
ushered into the presence of strangers, for the purpose of being
exhibited, and, indeed, I have some faint recollection of thus
disappointing an over-fond nurse, not unfrequently, on similar
occasions. There are some propositions the truth of which it is quite as
well to assent to, when one hears them stated, without waiting for
proof; and among these propositions I class those which relate to the
unheard-of sagacity and genius of a darling pet. I make it a point to
admit, without demonstration or argument, that there never was another
such a creature in all the world. Moreover, I saw plainly enough in
Dick's keen, black eye, that he knew a thing or two, and I could easily
understand how he might greatly endear himself to his little patron.
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