elves two
and the cook, and from my grandmother's love of tidiness and hatred of
dogs and of dirt, I believe she would have expelled "him whom we saved
from drowning," had not he, in his straightforward way, walked into my
father's bedroom one night when he was bathing his feet, and introduced
himself with a wag of his tail, intimating a general willingness to be
happy. My father laughed most heartily, and at last Toby, having got his
way to his bare feet, and having begun to lick his soles and between his
toes with his small rough tongue, my father gave such an unwonted shout
of laughter, that we--grandmother, sisters, and all of us--went in.
Grandmother might argue with all her energy and skill, but as surely as
the pressure of Tom Jones' infantile fist upon Mr. Allworthy's
forefinger undid all the arguments of his sister, so did Toby's tongue
and fun prove too many for grandmother's eloquence. I somehow think Toby
must have been up to all this, for I think he had a peculiar love for my
father ever after, and regarded grandmother from that hour with a
careful and cool eye.

Toby, when full grown, was a strong, coarse dog; coarse in shape, in
countenance, in hair, and in manner. I used to think that, according to
the Pythagorean doctrine, he must have been, or been going to be a
Gilmerton carter. He was of the bull-terrier variety, coarsened through
much mongrelism and a dubious and varied ancestry. His teeth were good,
and he had a large skull, and a rich bark as of a dog three times his
size, and a tail which I never saw equalled--indeed it was a tail _per
se_; it was of immense girth and not short, equal throughout like a
policeman's baton; the machinery for working it was of great power, and
acted in a way, as far as I have been able to discover, quite original.
We called it his ruler.

When he wished to get into the house, he first whined gently, then
growled, then gave a sharp bark, and then came a resounding, mighty
stroke which shook the house; this, after much study and watching, we
found was done by his bringing the entire length of his solid tail flat
upon the door, with a sudden and vigorous stroke; it was quite a _tour
de force_ or a _coup de queue_, and he was perfect in it at once, his
first _bang_ authoritative, having been as masterly and telling as his
last.

With all this inbred vulgar air, he was a dog of great moral
excellence--affectionate, faithful, honest up to his light, with an odd
humor a