jaws in a home-made apparatus,
constructed out of the leather of some ancient _breechin_. His mouth was
open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage--a sort of terrible
grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness; the strap across
his mouth tense as a bowstring; his whole frame stiff with indignation
and surprise; his roar asking us all round; "Did you ever see the like
of this?" He looked a statue of anger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen
granite.

We soon had a crowd: the Chicken held on. "A knife!" cried Bob; and a
cobbler gave him his knife: you know the kind of knife, worn away
obliquely to a point, and always keen. I put its edge to the tense
leather; it ran before it; and then!--one sudden jerk of that enormous
head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise,--and the bright
and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp, and dead. A solemn pause:
this was more than any of us had bargained for. I turned the little
fellow over, and saw he was quite dead; the mastiff had taken him by the
small of the back like a rat, and broken it.

He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed, and amazed; snuffed him
all over, stared at him, and taking a sudden thought, turned round and
trotted off. Bob took the dead dog up, and said, "John, we'll bury him
after tea." "Yes," said I, and was off after the mastiff. He made up the
Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had forgotten some engagement. He turned up
the Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the Harrow Inn.

There was a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient,
black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's head, looking
about angrily for something. "Rab, ye thief!" said he, aiming a kick at
my great friend, who drew cringing up, and avoiding the heavy shoe with
more agility than dignity, and watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed
under the cart,--his ears down, and as much as he had of tail down too.

What a man this must be--thought I--to whom my tremendous hero turns
tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his
neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought,
and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter alone were worthy
to rehearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to
say, "Rab, my man, puir Rabbie,"--whereupon the stump of a tail rose up,
the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted; the two
friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of the