ing the palm of his left hand with his right fist, "why I am
jiggered if he don't tell a lie as big as himself--that's all. That ere
man is my mortal henemy; and if that ere dog gets into trouble I'm a
sartain to be in trouble too. What should I cut the dog's tail off for,
I should like for to know? I arn't so hungry as all that, any how."

The idea of eating his dog's tail increased the choler of Mr
Vanslyperken. With looks of malignant vengeance he ordered Smallbones
out of the cabin.

"Shall I shy this here overboard, sir?" said Smallbones, taking up the
dog's tail, which lay on the table.

"Drop it, sir," roared Vanslyperken.

Smallbones walked away, grinning with delight, but his face was turned
from Mr Vanslyperken.

The corporal returned, swabbed up the blood, and reported that the
bleeding had stopped. Mr Vanslyperken had no further orders for him--he
wished to be left alone. He leaned his head upon his hand, and remained
for some time in a melancholy reverie, with his eyes fixed upon the
tail, which lay before him--that tail, now a "bleeding piece of earth,"
which never was to welcome him with a wag again. What passed in
Vanslyperken's mind during this time, it would be too difficult and too
long to repeat, for the mind flies over time and space with the rapidity
of the lightning's flash. At last he rose, took up the dog's tail, put
it into his pocket, went on deck, ordered his boat, and pulled on shore.

Chapter XXXVII

In which Mr Vanslyperken drives a very hard bargain.

We will be just and candid in our opinion relative to the historical
facts which we are now narrating. Party spirit, and various other
feelings, independent of misrepresentation do, at the time, induce
people to form their judgment, to say the best, harshly, and but too
often, incorrectly. It is for posterity to calmly weigh the evidence
handed down, and to examine into the merits of a case divested of party
bias. Actuated by these feelings, we do not hesitate to assert, that, in
the point at question, Mr Vanslyperken had great cause for being
displeased; and that the conduct of Moggy Salisbury, in cutting off the
tail of Snarleyyow was, in our opinion, not justifiable.

There is a respect for property, inculcated and protected by the laws,
which should never be departed from; and, whatever may have been the
aggressions on the part of Mr Vanslyperken, or of the dog, still a tail
is a tail, and whether mangy or not, is _bond