panting, and
amiably surveying the audience, with his tail beating the boards, like a
Dutch clock. Meanwhile the murderer, impatient to receive his doom, was
audibly calling to him "Co-o-ome here!" while the victim, struggling
with his bonds, assailed him with the most injurious expressions. It
happened, through these means, that when he was in course of time
persuaded to trot up and rend the murderer limb from limb, he made it
(for dramatic purposes) a little too obvious that he worked out that
awful retribution by licking butter off his blood-stained hands.
In a shy street behind Long Acre, two honest dogs live who perform in
Punch's shows. I may venture to say that I am on terms of intimacy with
both, and that I never saw either guilty of the falsehood of failing to
look down at the man inside the show, during the whole performance. The
difficulty other dogs have in satisfying their minds about these dogs
appears to be never overcome by time. The same dogs must encounter them
over and over again, as they trudge along in their off-minutes behind
the legs of the show and beside the drum; but all dogs seem to suspect
their frills and jackets, and to sniff at them as if they thought those
articles of personal adornment an eruption--a something in the nature of
mange, perhaps. From this Covent-garden window of mine I noticed a
country dog only the other day, who had come up to Covent Garden Market
under a cart, and had broken his cord, an end of which he still trailed
along with him. He loitered about the corners of the four streets
commanded by my window; and bad London dogs came up and told him lies
that he didn't believe; and worse London dogs came up and made proposals
to him to go end steal in the market, which his principles rejected; and
the ways of the town confused him, and he crept aside and lay down in a
doorway. He had scarcely got a wink of sleep, when up comes Punch with
Toby. He was darting to Toby for consolation and advice, when he saw the
frill, and stopped, in the middle of the street, appalled. The show was
pitched, Toby retired behind the drapery, the audience formed, the drum
and pipes struck up. My country dog remained immovable, intently staring
at these strange appearances, until Toby opened the drama by appearing
on his ledge, and to him entered Punch, who put a tobacco-pipe into
Toby's mouth. At this spectacle the country dog threw up his head, gave
one terrible howl, and fled due west.
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