Tommy," continued the querist, "with thy decayed bit of
blood?"

"Aye, aye," answered Tommy, despondingly, "even to the naggers,{1}--'tis
what we must all come to."

1 A Naggerman is a wholesale horse-butcher! his business is
frequently so extensive as to enable him to employ a vast
many hands, and so lucrative as to ensure him a fortune in a
very few years; the carcases are sold to the dealers by whom
they are cut up, and sold in quarters to the retailers, and
purchased by the street venders; these latter form one of
the prominent itinerant avocations, and supply with food all
the dogs and cats of the metropolis!

"And so thy master has passed the doom of death against his old servant
Bob, on whose back he has been safely borne, in the chase, "many a time
and oft," as the song says, "o'er hedges, gaps, ditches and gates;
and fleet of foot as thou wert," patting the animal with feelings of
commiseration," and often as thou hast replenished thy master's purse,
thou art now going to the slaughter-house!"

"Even so--the faithful servant, now no longer useful, is discarded."

"And put to death!--Why man, thy master is a d----d unfeeling,
ungrateful scoundrel, else he would have turned this poor nag at large
on the green sward, to roam as he list in summer, with a warm stable in
winter, and have left him to die the death of nature."

An assemblage of passengers had now collected round the doom'd horse
and his sympathizing friend, whose vehemence of expression had attracted
much attention. The feelings of his auditory were in full unison with
his own, and as the throng increased, with inquisitive curiosity, the
advocate in the cause of humanity repeated the following lines:

"And hast thou doom'd my death, sweet master, say,
And wilt thou kill thy servant, old and poor?
A little longer let me live, I pray;
A little longer hobble round thy door!"

~91~~The spectators were evidently affected. He next sung the stanza of
an old song, extemporaneously produced (with the exception of the first
two lines)

At last having labored, drudg'd early and late,
Bow'd down by degrees he draws on to his fate:
His blood must the Naggerman's sluicing knife spill;
His carcase the Naggerman's slaughter-house fill!
Now led to his doom, while with pity we view
Poor Bob, may mishap still his master