rds he came amongst
them with his wooden saucer in his mouth, they gave freely.

Our dog came in and immediately commenced to study. In three days _he_
could stand on his head and walk round on his front legs, and the first
evening he did so he made sixpence. It must have been terribly hard work
for him at his age, and subject to rheumatism as he was; but he would do
anything for money. I believe he would have sold himself to the devil
for eightpence down.

He knew the value of money. If you held out to him a penny in one hand
and a threepenny-bit in the other, he would snatch at the threepence, and
then break his heart because he could not get the penny in as well. You
might safely have left him in the room with a leg of mutton, but it would
not have been wise to leave your purse about.

Now and then he spent a little, but not often. He was desperately fond
of sponge-cakes, and occasionally, when he had had a good week, he would
indulge himself to the extent of one or two. But he hated paying for
them, and always made a frantic and frequently successful effort to get
off with the cake and the penny also. His plan of operations was simple.
He would walk into the shop with his penny in his mouth, well displayed,
and a sweet and lamblike expression in his eyes. Taking his stand as
near to the cakes as he could get, and fixing his eyes affectionately
upon them, he would begin to whine, and the shopkeeper, thinking he was
dealing with an honest dog, would throw him one.

To get the cake he was obliged, of course, to drop the penny, and then
began a struggle between him and the shopkeeper for the possession of the
coin. The man would try to pick it up. The dog would put his foot upon
it, and growl savagely. If he could finish the cake before the contest
was over, he would snap up the penny and bolt. I have known him to come
home gorged with sponge-cakes, the original penny still in his mouth.

So notorious throughout the neighbourhood did this dishonest practice of
his become, that, after a time, the majority of the local tradespeople
refused to serve him at all. Only the exceptionally quick and
able-bodied would attempt to do business with him.

Then he took his custom further afield, into districts where his
reputation had not yet penetrated. And he would pick out shops kept by
nervous females or rheumatic old men.

They say that the love of money is the root of all evil. It seemed to
have robbed him