several years ago there were two seals in the “zoo” garden at amsterdam which were so fond of their keeper that they could recognize his voice a long way off, and would go to meet him.

these seals also became attached to an old gentleman and his little granddaughter, who often went to see them in company with a little woolly dog, and who always took the seals something nice to eat. these animals were kept in a large pond, and they would come out of the water on seeing their friends and sit down with them to have a good time on the sand.

the small dog was very lively on these occasions, and he and the seals would frolic together as though they belonged to the same family, and shared the fruit and cakes from the little girl’s basket.

one day, however, just in the midst of their fun, the dog fell into the pond, and, after struggling for a moment in the water, he sank. the seals uttered a cry of dismay as he disappeared, and then, flopping to the pond, they plunged in. in an instant the larger one had seized the half-drowned dog, and, carrying him very tenderly in his mouth, placed the dripping animal at his mistress’s feet.