Show BETZWIE tWill t-Will Finch and the Belgian Lapdog Jly Ells Parker + Butter Author oFPi05 is Pigs Etc ILLUSTRATED By PETER NEWELL Will Finch gives notice to everybody every-body In Dctzvlllo that the party that stole his llulglan lapdog Is known to him and that unless the dog Is returned turned before next Wednesday noon ho will offer 5 reward for any Infor nation leading to the Identification of the thief Will Is all broken up over tho loss of the dog lie paid a dollar for It to a passing tramp who swore ho had utolcii tho pup or he couldnt afford to Bell It for tho price Tho tramp said the pup was a Belgian lapdog and to prove It offered to let Will see It lap up milk If Will would furnish thC milk Ho said ho had just returned turned from a pedestrian tour of Mex leo passing I through Ilolglum t on his way to Uetzvlllc Will port of suggested sug-gested that a lapdog wasnt ono that lUllS but one that Is 1 small enough to sit In It lap nnd the tramp fell right i In with the notion He told Will that wns What made the Belgian lapdogs so vuluable they were both kinds of Inppers Will doesnt often spend money and when he does he likes to get his loundlatid and yet he hated to think that ho had paid good money for a lapdog that couldnt bo lapped It was like wasting tho money First he thought he would write to New York and got In communication with an agency that handled Human Curiosities Curi-osities ho thought ho might bo able to find a Human Curiosity that ran mostly to lap but ho hesitated He could not be sure the Belgian lapdog lap-dog had stopped growing and ho hated to go to the expense of marrying marry-ing a Human Curiosity only to have her lap soon outgrown So he moped around and got thinner and thinner and worried himself nearly to death but thero didnt seem to be any way In which he could get value received for the dollar ho had spent for the lapdog Then Just when he had reached the lowest depths of worry Uncle Ashod Cluto suggested something that cheered Will up again nnd made him as happy as of yore and the next thing wo knew Will was packing his goods In boxes and laying In timetables time-tables And the funny thing so he T l Ili I I I c 6 c n2 f y i lc y1 l 1 r l 0 O 7 Z ryt PQ > tCrNQvveJ The Dog Was as Big as a Newfoundland by That Time moneys worth and as soon as ho paid for tho dog he took It home and began lapping It as you might say Ho sat down In a chair and put tho dog on his lap but Will Is so bowlegged i bow-legged that the dog fell right through his lap onto the floor Ho tried It eight or ten times and then ho decided de-cided he didnt have the right kind of a lap to hold a dog on but he was not going to waste a dog that he had paid a good dollar for and the only thing bo could see to do was to get a lap that would hold tho dog properly and the more he thought about it tho more sure he became that what ho needed was a female lap with a skirt so tho log couldnt fall through So he thought It over well and ho decided de-cided that Miss Daisy Ihinlcett would do She was a small sized person and about right to hold a small lapdog lap-dog dogWill Will Finch found right then that It takes longer to get a female lap Into tho family than to buy a lapdog lap-dog but ho was thoroughly aroused about it and he went right to work courting Daisy and ho had Just got to the point where he was ready to propose when ho happened to look at the dog carefully and he was all taken ta-ken aback Tho dog had grown a lot and was as big as a goodsized coach dog Will saw Immediately that Daisy Plunkett wouldnt do at allsho didnt have nearly enough lap to hold such a large lapdog 1 So Will went about town for n week or two studying the height and breadth of all the iinmntcd ladles of our burg and at last he decided that Sally Ann Scroggs was about the rangiest limbed ho could lind and that she would fit tho dog pretty well and ho started In to court her for n1I ho was worth and by and by she began be-gan to incline his way a little and ho was just on the point of proposing propos-ing when ho happened to study the dog again and ho saw light off that Sally Ann wouldnt do The dog was an big its a Newfoundland by I that tlmoWell Well Will was nearly broken up over It Ho couldnt think o i lap In all Ictrvllli I that TVItld In M 1 > uuph to hold a lapdog tin size of a 1 New said was that he hadnt thought of It before So he packed his belongings belong-ings and had them shipped to tho Junction and bought a new suitcase and bought a ticket to Salt Lake City In talking it over with us he said he saw plainly enough that no one lap could ever be big enough to hold that i now laphound non as It was now nnd there was no telling when It would stop growing so the only thing to do was to secure an extensible exten-sible lap on the principle of a sectional sec-tional bookcase that could bo added to from time to time to meet requirements require-ments He said ho was going to Utah and become it Mormon and that right at first he did not calculate to marry more than two laps for he figured tho dog could stretch out and not much more than till two laps In his present size but that It ho kept on growing it would be easy enough to annex a few more laps And Just then somebody sneaked Into Wills house and stole tho dog Wills ticket runs out next Wednesday Wednes-day noon and thats why he wants tho laydog returned by then but ho Is all at sea just now He dont know whether to go out to Utah anyway sons so-ns to save what he paid for the ticket or to stay id Uetzvlllo and try to recover re-cover the dog he Invested a dollar in Ono way It looks foolish to go out and marry two or more laps when there Is no dog to Ho In them and tho other way It looks foolish to stay and recover tho dog after the ticket has expired and when ho cannot nf ford to spend any more to secure propel laps He says this world Is full of trouble and ho will be glad when ho is above where tho cherubim cheru-bim dont have any lapsonly heads and wings I iCopyrigm 11KO by V G Chapman |