Billy Whiskers Adventures | Page 7

for me when
I can get good, clean sand! After a roll I shall come out as clean and
shining as if I had been sent to the cleaner and run through a vat of
gasoline."
Stubby and Buster went to the river and were soon swimming around
and having great sport in the water as it was nice and warm. But
presently Stubby stopped short and stared ahead of him, and what do

you think he saw but a whole drove of rats swimming out to a big
sea-going vessel that lay at anchor in the harbor.
"Let's go ashore. I've seen all the rats I want to see for a coon's age.
And you can't get me out of here too soon for they may attack us."
Soon Stubby and Buster, looking as clean as whistles, found Button
and Tiger who also looked spick and span, and the four entered the
clubroom, which was on one of the upper floors and as light as day for
the light from four big electric street lamps came streaming in the
window, lighting the room from corner to corner and making it as
bright as if the lamps were in the room itself. And what a sight was
there! Hundreds of dogs and cats were there sitting on benches
arranged in a semicircle and graduated like the seats in a theater. For
this room had been used as a lecture room to give instructions to sailors
and soldiers before going overseas, and the benches and platform were
just as they had left them.
On the platform, sitting upon their hind legs on chairs one could see
every specie of dog from the Eskimo dog of the North to the tiny
hairless dog of the tropics. There were big dogs, little dogs,
middle-sized dogs, and cats of all sizes, colors and breeds. The
snow-white Angora was there as well as the mangy alley cat. But all
were on an equal at these meetings and there was no quarreling
between aristocrat and the animal with no pedigree. All was harmony
there. Could only the human race be as harmonious as these animals,
the Brotherhood of Man would be established.
One after another the cats and dogs went on the platform and either told
some funny episode that had happened to them or some tragedy that
had occurred where they lived, or else they described the country from
which they had come, and told how the natives lived.

CHAPTER III
AN EXCITING EVENING

The first dog called upon to lecture was an Eskimo dog with bright,
snappy eyes, short, sharply pointed ears, strong legs and a bushy tail
that gave him the appearance of a wolf, especially as his coat was just
the color of that animal. And what more natural, as the Eskimo dog is
the direct descendant of the timber wolf of the North? And though they
may appear docile at times, still they always retain that half wild,
ferocious look and manner.
He was a handsome, alert dog and spoke in quick, short sentences and
to the point. He began by saying:
"I expect that none of you are familiar with the far North, where it is
day six months of the year and night the other six. But though the sun
does not shine, don't think for a moment that we live in pitch darkness,
for the stars and the Northern Lights make our nights most beautiful. In
fact, they are more beautiful and varied than our days. Instead of the
blazing rays of the sun that blind one, we have the ever varied, many
colored rays of the Aurora Borealis, shooting stars and electrical
displays of all kinds that far surpass even your most elaborate Fourth of
July celebrations.
"One moment the sky will be a sea-shell pink, with bars of vivid green,
lavender and purple playing across it, while in the center will be a
misty golden ball as if the sun was trying to shine through. The next
instant all may be pitch darkness until this too is chased away by
another electrical outburst. These go on constantly for the whole six
months until they become so common an occurrence that the
inhabitants pay no more attention to those magnificent displays than
you do to your sun on a summer day.
"Picture to yourself this wonderful sky, against which huge icebergs are
seen, taller than your tallest church steeple, and more beautiful to look
upon with their lacelike frostwork than your most elaborately carved
white marble cathedral. All of this is reflected in detail in the clear, cold,
deep green waters of the Arctic Ocean, where the big walruses, whales
and seals live, to say nothing of the clumsy white polar bears that sit
idly on a cake