In the season for making presents my friend Stockdoddle Gish, Esq.,
thought he would so far waive his superiority to the insignificant
portion of mankind outside his own waistcoat as to follow one of its
customs. Mr. Gish has a friend—a delicate female of the shrinking
sort—whom he favours with his esteem as a sort of equivalent for the
respect she accords him when he browbeats her. Our hero numbers among
the blessings which his merit has extorted from niggardly Nature a
gaunt meathound, between whose head and body there exists about the
same proportion as between those of a catfish, which he also resembles
in the matter of mouth. As to sides, this precious pup is not
dissimilar to a crockery crate loosely covered with a wet sheet. In
appetite he is liberal and cosmopolitan, loving a dried sheepskin as
well in proportion to its weight as a kettle of soap. The village which
Mr. Gish honours by his residence has for some years been kept upon the
dizzy verge of financial ruin by the maintenance of this animal.
The reader will have already surmised that it was this beast which our
hero selected to testify his toleration of his lady friend. There never
was a greater mistake. Mr. Gish merely presented her a sheaf of
assorted angle-worms, neatly bound with a pink ribbon tied into a
simple knot. The dog is an heirloom and will descend to the Gishes of
the next generation, in the direct line of inheritance.