Act II. opens with a dialogue spoken off the stage. Invisible dramatis

This eBook was produced by David Widger

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

Certes, the lizard is a shy and timorous creature. He runs into

chinks and crannies if you come too near to him, and sheds his very

tail for fear, if you catch it by the tip. He has not his being in

good society: no one cages him, no one pets. He is an idle vagrant.

But when he steals through the green herbage, and basks unmolested

in the sun, he crowds perhaps as much enjoyment into one summer hour

as a parrot, however pampered and erudite, spreads over a whole

drawing-room life spent in saying "How dye do" and "Pretty Poll."

ON that dull and sombre summer morning in which the grandfather and

grandchild departed from the friendly roof of Mr. Merle, very dull and

very sombre were the thoughts of little Sophy. She walked slowly behind

the gray cripple, who had need to lean so heavily on his staff, and her

eye had not even a smile for the golden buttercups that glittered on dewy

meads alongside the barren road.

Thus had they proceeded apart and silent till they had passed the second

milestone. There, Waife, rousing from his own reveries, which were

perhaps yet more dreary than those of the dejected child, halted

abruptly, passed his hand once or twice rapidly over his forehead, and,

turning round to Sophy, looked into her face with great kindness as she

came slowly to his side.

"You are sad, little one?" said he.

"Very sad, Grandy."

"And displeased with me? Yes, displeased that I have taken you suddenly

away from the pretty young gentleman, who was so kind to you, without

encouraging the chance that you were to meet with him again."

"It was not like you, Grandy," answered Sophy; and her under-lip slightly

pouted, while the big tears swelled to her eye.

"True," said the vagabond; "anything resembling common-sense is not like

me. But don't you think that I did what I felt was best for you? Must I

not have some good cause for it, whenever I have the heart deliberately

to vex you?"

Sophy took his hand and pressed it, but she could not trust herself to

speak, for she felt that at such effort she would have burst out into

hearty crying. Then Waife proceeded to utter many of those wise sayings,

old as the hills, and as high above our sorrows as hills are from the

valley in which we walk. He said how foolish it was to unsettle the mind

by preposterous fancies and impossible hopes. The pretty young gentleman

could never be anything to her, nor she to the pretty young gentleman.

It might be very well for the pretty young gentleman to promise to

correspond with her, but as soon as he returned to his friends he would

have other things to think of, and she would soon be forgotten; while

she, on the contrary, would be thinking of him, and the Thames and the

butterflies, and find hard life still more irksome. Of all this, and

much more, in the general way of consolers who set out on the principle

that grief is a matter of logic, did Gentleman Waife deliver himself with

a vigour of ratiocination which admitted of no reply, and conveyed not a

particle of comfort. And feeling this, that great actor--not that he was

acting then-suddenly stopped, clasped the child in his arms, and murmured

in broken accents,--"But if I see you thus cast down, I shall have no

strength left to hobble on through the world; and the sooner I lie down,

and the dust is shovelled over me, why, the better for you; for it seems

that Heaven sends you friends, and I tear you from them."

And then Sophy fairly gave way to her sobs: she twined her little arms

round the old man's neck convulsively, kissed his rough face with

imploring pathetic fondness, and forced out through her tears, "Don't

talk so! I've been ungrateful and wicked. I don't care for any one but

my own dear, dear Grandy."

After this little scene, they both composed themselves, and felt much

lighter of heart. They pursued their journey, no longer apart, but side

by side, and the old man leaning, though very lightly, on the child's

arm. But there was no immediate reaction from gloom to gayety. Waife

began talking in softened undertones, and vaguely, of his own past

afflictions; and partial as was the reference, how vast did the old man's

sorrows seem beside the child's regrets; and yet he commented on them as

if rather in pitying her state than grieving for his own.

"Ah, at your age, my darling, I had not your troubles and hardships. I

had not to trudge these dusty roads on foot with a broken-down good-for-

nothing scatterling; I trod rich carpets, and slept under silken

curtains. I took the air in gay carriages,--I such a scapegrace; and

you, little child, you so good! All gone, all melted away from me, and

not able now to be sure that you will have a crust of bread this day

week."

"Oh, yes! I shall have bread, and you too, Grandy," cried Sophy, with

cheerful voice. "It was you who taught me to pray to God, and said that

in all your troubles God had been good to you: and He has been so good to

me since I prayed to Him; for I have no dreadful Mrs. Crane to beat me

now, and say things more hard to bear than beating; and you have taken me

to yourself. How I prayed for that! And I take care of you too,

Grandy,--don't I? I prayed for that too; and as to carriages," added

Sophy, with superb air, "I don't care if I am never in a carriage as long

as I live; and you know I have been in a van, which is bigger than a

carriage, and I didn't like that at all. But how came people to behave

so ill to you, Grandy?"

"I never said people behaved ill to me, Sophy."

"Did not they take away the carpets and silk curtains, and all the fine

things you had as a little boy?"

"I don't know," replied Waife, with a puzzled look, "that people actually

took them away; but they melted away.

"However, I had much still to be thankful for: I was so strong, and had

such high spirits, Sophy, and found people not behaving ill to me,--quite

the contrary, so kind. I found no Crane (she monster) as you did, my

little angel. Such prospects before me, if I had walked straight towards

them! But I followed my own fancy, which led me zigzag; and now that I

would stray back into the high road, you see before you a man whom a

Justice of the Peace could send to the treadmill for presuming to live

without a livelihood."

SOPHY.--"Not without a livelihood!--the what did you call it?--

independent income,--that is, the Three Pounds, Grandy?"

WAIFE (admiringly).--"Sensible child. That is true. Yes, Heaven is very

good to me still. Ah! what signifies fortune? How happy I was with my

dear Lizzy, and yet no two persons could live more from hand to mouth."

SOPHY (rather jealously).--"tizzy?"

WAIFE (with moistened eyes, and looking down).--"My wife. She was only

spared to me two years: such sunny years! And how grateful I ought to be

that she did not live longer. She was saved--such--such--such shame and

misery!" A long pause.

Waife resumed, with a rush from memory, as if plucking himself from the

claws of a harpy,--"What's the good of looking back? A man's gone self

is a dead thing. It is not I--now tramping this road, with you to lean

upon--whom I see, when I would turn to look behind on that which I once

was: it is another being, defunct and buried; and when I say to myself,

'that being did so and so,' it is like reading an epitaph on a tombstone.

So, at last, solitary and hopeless, I came back to my own land; and I

found you,--a blessing greater than I had ever dared to count on. And

how was I to maintain you, and take you from that long-nosed alligator

called Crane, and put you in womanly gentle hands; for I never thought

then of subjecting you to all you have since undergone with me,--I who

did not know one useful thing in life by which a man can turn a penny.

And then, as I was all alone in a village ale-house, on my way back from-

it does not signify from what, or from whence, but I was disappointed and

despairing, Providence mercifully threw in my way--Mr. Rugge, and

ordained me to be of great service to that ruffian, and that ruffian of

great use to me."

Sorfiy.--"Ah, how was that?"

WAIFE.--"It was fair time in the village wherein I stopped, and Rugge's

principal actor was taken off by delirium tremens, which is Latin for a

disease common to men who eat little and drink much. Rugge came into the

alehouse bemoaning his loss. A bright thought struck me. Once in my day

I had been used to acting. I offered to try my chance on Mr. Rugge's

stage: he caught at me, I at him. I succeeded: we came to terms, and my

little Sophy was thus taken from that ringleted crocodile, and placed

with Christian females who wore caps and read their Bible. Is not Heaven

good to us, Sophy; and to me too--me, such a scamp?"

"And you did all that,--suffered all that for my sake?"

"Suffered, but I liked it. And, besides, I must have done something; and

there were reasons--in short, I was quite happy; no, not actually happy,

but comfortable and merry. Providence gives thick hides to animals that

must exist in cold climates; and to the man whom it reserves for sorrow,

Providence gives a coarse, jovial temper. Then, when by a mercy I was

saved from what I most disliked and dreaded, and never would have thought

of but that I fancied it might be a help to you,--I mean the London

stage,--and had that bad accident on the railway, how did it end? Oh!

in saving you" (and Waife closed his eyes and shuddered), "in saving your

destiny from what might be much worse for you, body and soul, than the

worst that has happened to you with me. And so we have been thrown

together; and so you have supported me; and so, when we could exist

without Mr. Rugge, Providence got rid of him for us. And so we are now

walking along the high road; and through yonder trees you can catch a

peep of the roof under which we are about to rest for a while; and there

you will learn what I have done with the Three Pounds!"

"It is not the Spotted Boy, Grandy?"

"No," said Waife, sighing; "the Spotted Boy is a handsome income; but let

us only trust in Providence, and I should not wonder if our new

acquisition proved a monstrous--"

"Monstrous!"

"Piece of good fortune."

CHAPTER II.

The investment revealed.

Gentleman Waife passed through a turnstile, down a narrow lane, and

reached a solitary cottage. He knocked at the door; an old peasant woman

opened it, and dropped him a civil courtesy. "Indeed, sir, I am glad you

are come. I 'se most afeared he be dead."

"Dead!" exclaimed Waife. "Oh, Sophy, if he should be dead!"

"Who?"

Waife did not heed the question. "What makes you think him dead?" said

he, fumbling in his pockets, from which he at last produced a key. "You

have not been disobeying my strict orders, and tampering with the door?"

"Lor' love ye, no, sir. But he made such a noise at fust--awful! And

now he's as still as a corpse. And I did peep through the keyhole, and

he was stretched stark."

"Hunger, perhaps," said the Comedian; "'t is his way when he has been

kept fasting much over his usual hours. Follow me, Sophy." He put aside

the woman, entered the sanded kitchen, ascended a stair that led from it;

and Sophy following, stopped at a door and listened: not a sound.

Timidly he unlocked the portals and crept in, when, suddenly such a

rush,--such a spring, and a mass of something vehement yet soft, dingy

yet whitish, whirled past the actor, and came pounce against Sophy, who

therewith uttered a shriek. "Stop him, stop him, for heaven's sake,"

cried Waife. "Shut the door below,--seize him." Downstairs, however,

went the mass, and downstairs after it hobbled Waife, returning in a few

moments with the recaptured and mysterious fugitive. "There," he cried

triumphantly to Sophy, who, standing against the wall with her face

buried in her frock, long refused to look up,--"there,--tame as a lamb,

and knows me. See!" he seated himself on the floor, and Sophy,

hesitatingly opening her eyes, beheld gravely gazing at her from under a

profusion of shaggy locks an enormous--

CHAPTER III.

Denoumente!

POODLE!

CHAPTER IV.

Zoology in connection with history.

"Walk to that young lady, sir,--walk, I say." The poodle slowly rose on

his hind legs, and, with an aspect inexpressibly solemn, advanced towards

Sophy, who hastily receded into the room in which the creature had been

confined.

"Make a bow--no--a bow, sir; that is right: you can shake hands another

time. Run down, Sophy, and ask for his dinner."

"Yes; that I will;" and Sophy flew down the stairs.

The dog, still on his hind legs, stood in the centre of the floor

dignified, but evidently expectant.

"That will do; lie down and die. Die this moment, sir." The dog

stretched himself out, closed his eyes, and to all appearance gave up the

ghost. "A most splendid investment," said Waife, with enthusiasm; "and

upon the whole, clog cheap. Ho! you are not to bring up his dinner; it

is not you who are to make friends with the dog; it is my little girl;

send her up; Sophy, Sophy!"

"She be fritted, sir," said the woman, holding a plate of canine

comestibles; "but lauk, sir, bent he really dead?"

"Sophy, Sophy"

"Please let me stay here, Grandy," said Sophy's voice from the foot of

the stairs.

"Nonsense! it is sixteen hours since he has had a morsel to eat. And he

will never bite the hand that feeds him now. Come up, I say."

Sophy slowly reascended, and Waife summoning the poodle to life, insisted

upon the child's feeding him. And indeed, when that act of charity was

performed, the dog evinced his gratitude by a series of unsophisticated

bounds and waggings of the tail, which gradually removed Sophy's

apprehensions, and laid the foundation for that intimate friendship which

is the natural relation between child and dog.

"And how did you come by him?" asked Sophy; "and is this really the--the

INVESTMENT?"

"Shut the door carefully, but see first that the woman is not listening.

Lie down, sir, there, at the feet of the young lady. Good dog! How did

I come by him? I will tell you. The first day we arrived at the village

which we have just left I went into the tobacconist's. While I was

buying my ounce of canaster that dog entered the shop. In his mouth was

a sixpence wrapped in paper. He lifted himself on his hind legs, and

laid his missive on the counter. The shopwoman--you know her, Mrs.

Traill--unfolded the paper and read the order. 'Clever dog that, sir,'

said she. 'To fetch and carry?' said I, indifferently. 'More than that,

sir; you shall see. The order is for two penn'orth of snuff. The dog

knows he is to take back fourpence. I will give him a penny

short.' So she took the sixpence and gave the dog threepence out of it.

The dog shook his head and looked gravely into her face. 'That's all

you'll get,' said she. The dog shook his head again, and tapped his paw

once on the counter, as much as to say, 'I'm not to be done: a penny

more, if you please.' 'If you'll not take that, you shall have nothing,'

said Mrs. Traill, and she took back the threepence."

"Dear! and what did the dog do then,--snarl or bite?" "Not so; he knew

he was in his rights, and did not lower himself by showing bad temper.

The dog looked quietly round, saw a basket which contained two or three

pounds of candles lying in a corner for the shop boy to take to some

customer; took up the basket in his mouth, and turned tail, as much as to

say, 'Tit for tat then.' He understood, you see, what is called 'the law

of reprisals.' 'Come back this moment,' cried Mrs. Traill. The dog

walked out of the shop; then she ran after him, and counted the fourpence

before him, on which he dropped the basket, picked up the right change,

and went off demurely. 'To whom does that poodle belong?' said I. 'To a

poor drunken man,' said Mrs. Traill; 'I wish it was in better hands.'

'So do I, ma'am,' answered I; 'did he teach it?' 'No, it was taught by

his brother, who was an old soldier, and died in his house two weeks ago.

It knows a great many tricks, and is quite young. It might make a

fortune as a show, sir.' So I was thinking. I inquired the owner's

address, called on him, and found him disposed to sell the dog. But he

asked L3, a sum that seemed out of the question then. Still I kept the

dog in my eye; called every day to make friends with it, and ascertain

its capacities. And at last, thanks to you, Sophy, I bought the dog; and

what is more, as soon as I had two golden sovereigns to show, I got him

for that sum, and we have still L1. left (besides small savings from our

lost salaries) to go to the completion of his education, and the

advertisement of his merits. I kept this a secret from Merle,--from all.

I would not even let the drunken owner know where I took the dog to

yesterday. I brought him here, where, I learned in the village, there

were two rooms to let, locked him up, and my story is told."

"But why keep it such a secret?"

"Because I don't want Rugge to trace us. He might do one a mischief;

because I have a grand project of genteel position and high prices for

the exhibition of that dog. And why should it be known where we come

from, or what we were? And because, if the owner knew where to find the

dog, he might decoy it back from us. Luckily he had not made the dog so

fond of him but what, unless it be decoyed, it will accustom itself to

us. And now I propose that we should stay a week or so here, and devote

ourselves exclusively to developing the native powers of this gifted

creature. Get out the dominos."

"What is his name?"

"Ha! that is the first consideration. What shall be his name?"

"Has he not one already?"

"Yes,--trivial and unattractive,--Mop! In private life it might pass.

But in public life--give a dog a bad name and hang him. Mop, indeed!"

Therewith Mop, considering himself appealed to, rose and stretched

himself.

"Right," said Gentleman Waife; "stretch yourself--you decidedly require

it."

CHAPTER V.

Mop becomes a personage.--Much thought is bestowed on the verbal

dignities, without which a personage would become a mop.--The

importance of names is apparent in all history.--If Augustus had

called himself king, Rome would have risen against him as a Tarquin;

so he remained a simple equestrian, and modestly called himself

Imperator.--Mop chooses his own title in a most mysterious manner,

and ceases to be Mop.

"The first noticeable defect in your name of Mop," said Gentleman Waife,

"is, as you yourself denote, the want of elongation. Monosyllables are

not imposing, and in striking compositions their meaning is elevated by

periphrasis; that is to say, Sophy, that what before was a short truth,

an elegant author elaborates into a long stretch."

"Certainly," said Sophy, thoughtfully; "I don't think the name of Mop

would draw! Still he is very like a mop."

"For that reason the name degrades him the more, and lowers him from an

intellectual phenomenon to a physical attribute, which is vulgar. I hope

that that dog will enable us to rise in the scale of being. For whereas

we in acting could only command a threepenny audience--reserved seats a

shilling--he may aspire to half-crowns and dress-boxes; that is, if we

can hit on a name which inspires respect. Now, although the dog is big,

it is not by his size that he is to become famous, or we might call him

Hercules or Goliath; neither is it by his beauty, or Adonis would not be

unsuitable. It is by his superior sagacity and wisdom. And there I am

puzzled to find his prototype amongst mortals; for, perhaps, it may be my

ignorance of history--"

"You ignorant, indeed, Grandfather!"

"But considering the innumerable millions who have lived on the earth, it

is astonishing how few I can call to mind who have left behind them a

proverbial renown for wisdom. There is, indeed, Solomon, but he fell off

at the last; and as he belongs to sacred history, we must not take a

liberty with his name. Who is there very, very wise, besides Solomon?

Think, Sophy,--Profane History."

Sophy (after a musing pause).--"Puss in Boots."

"Well, he was wise; but then he was not human; he was a cat. Ha!

Socrates. Shall we call him Socrates, Socrates, Socrates?"

SOPHY.--"Socrates, Socrates!" Mop yawned.

WAIFE.--"He don't take to Socrates,--prosy!"

SOPHY.--"Ah, Mr. Merle's book about the Brazen Head, Friar Bacon! He

must have been very wise."

WAIFE.--"Not bad; mysterious, but not recondite; historical, yet

familiar. What does Mop say to it? Friar, Friar, Friar Bacon, sir,

--Friar!"

SOPHY (coaxingly).--"Friar!"

Mop, evidently conceiving that appeal is made to some other personage,

canine or human, not present, rouses up, walks to the door, smells at the

chink, returns, shakes his head, and rests on his haunches, eying his two

friends superciliously.

SOPHY.--"He does not take to that name."

WAIFE.--"He has his reasons for it; and indeed there are many worthy

persons who disapprove of anything that savours of magical practices.

Mop intimates that on entering public life one should beware of offending

the respectable prejudices of a class."

Mr. Waife then, once more resorting to the recesses of scholastic memory,

plucked therefrom, somewhat by the head and shoulders, sundry names

reverenced in a by-gone age. He thought of the seven wise men of Greece,

but could only recall the nomenclature of two out of the--even,--a sad

proof of the distinction between collegiate fame and popular renown. He

called Thales; he called Bion. Mop made no response. "Wonderful

intelligence!" said Waife; "he knows that Thales and Bion would not

draw!--obsolete."

Mop was equally mute to Aristotle. He pricked up his cars at Plato,

perhaps because the sound was not wholly dissimilar from that of Ponto,

--a name of which he might have had vague reminiscences. The Romans not

having cultivated an original philosophy, though they contrived to

produce great men without it, Waife passed by that perished people. He

crossed to China, and tried Confucius. Mop had evidently never heard of

him.

"I am at the end of my list, so far as the wise men are concerned," said

Waife, wiping his forehead. "If Mop were to distinguish himself by

valour, one would find heroes by the dozen,--Achilles, and Hector, and

Julius Caesar, and Pompey, and Bonaparte, and Alexander the Great, and

the Duke of Marlborough. Or, if he wrote poetry, we could fit him to a

hair. But wise men certainly are scarce, and when one has hit on a wise

man's name it is so little known to the vulgar that it would carry no

more weight with it than Spot or Toby. But necessarily some name the dog

must have, and take to sympathetically."

Sophy meanwhile had extracted the dominos from Waife's bundle, and with

the dominos an alphabet and a multiplication-table in printed capitals.

As the Comedian's one eye rested upon the last, he exclaimed, "But after

all, Mop's great strength will probably be in arithmetic, and the science

of numbers is the root of all wisdom. Besides, every man, high and low,

wants to make a fortune, and associations connected with addition and

multiplication are always pleasing. Who, then, is the sage at

computation most universally known? Unquestionably Cocker! He must take

to that, Cocker, Cocker" (commandingly),--"C-o-c-k-e-r" (with persuasive

sweetness).

Mop looked puzzled; he put his head first on one side, then on the other.

SOPHY (with mellifluous endearment).--"Cocker, good Cocker; Cocker dear!"

BOTH.--"Cocker, Cocker, Cocker!"

Excited and bewildered, Mop put up his head, and gave vent to his

perplexities in a long and lugubrious howl, to which certainly none who

heard it could have desired addition or multiplication.

"Stop this instant, sir,--stop; I shoot you! You are dead,--down!"

Waife adjusted his staff to his shoulder gun-wise; and at the word of

command, "Down," Mop was on his side, stiff and lifeless. "Still," said

Waife, "a name connected with profound calculation would be the most

appropriate; for instance, Sir Isaac--"

Before the. Comedian could get out the word Newton, Mop had sprung to

his four feet, and, with wagging tail and wriggling back, evinced a sense

of beatified recognition.

"Astounding!" said Waife, rather awed. "Can it be the name?

Impossible. Sir Isaac, Sir Isaac!"

"Bow-wow!" answered Mop, joyously.

"If there be any truth in the doctrine of metempsychosis," faltered

Gentleman Waife, "if the great Newton could have transmigrated into that

incomparable animal! Newton, Newton!" To that name Mop made no

obeisance, but, evidently still restless, walked round the room, smelling

at every corner, and turning to look back with inquisitive earnestness at

his new master.

"He does not seem to catch at the name of Newton," said Waife, trying it

thrice again, and vainly, "and yet he seems extremely well versed in the

principle of gravity. Sir Isaac!" The dog bounded towards him, put his

paws on his shoulder, and licked his face. "Just cut out those figures

carefully, my dear, and see if we can get him to tell us how much twice

ten are--I mean by addressing him as Sir Isaac."

Sophy cut the figures from the multiplication table, and arranged them,

at Waife's instruction, in a circle on the floor. "Now, Sir Isaac." Mop

lifted a paw, and walked deliberately round the letters. "Now, Sir

Isaac, how much are ten times two?" Mop deliberately made his survey and

calculation, and, pausing at twenty, stooped, and took the letters in his

mouth.

"It is not natural," cried Sophy, much alarmed. "It must be wicked, and

I'd rather have nothing to do with it, please."

"Silly child! He was but obeying my sign. He had been taught that trick

already under the name of Mop. The only strange thing is, that he should

do it also under the name of Sir Isaac, and much more cheerfully too.

However, whether he has been the great Newton or not, a live dog is

better than a dead lion. But it is clear that, in acknowledging the name

of Sir Isaac, he does not encourage us to take that of Newton; and he is

right: for it might be thought unbecoming to apply to an animal, however

extraordinary, who by the severity of fortune is compelled to exhibit his

talents for a small pecuniary reward, the family name of so great a

philosopher. Sir Isaac, after all, is a vague appellation; any dog has a

right to be Sir Isaac--Newton may be left conjectural. Let us see if we

can add to our arithmetical information. Look at me, Sir Isaac." Sir

Isaac looked and grinned affectionately; and under that title learned a

new combination with a facility that might have relieved Sophy's mind of

all superstitious belief that the philosopher was resuscitated in the

dog, had she known that in life that great master of calculations the

most abstruse could not accurately cast up a simple sum in addition.

Nothing brought him to the end of his majestic tether like dot and carry

one. Notable type of our human incompleteness, where men might deem our

studies had made us most complete! Notable type, too, of that grandest

order of all human genius which seems to arrive at results by intuition,

which a child might pose by a row of figures on a slate, while it is

solving the laws that link the stars to infinity! But /revenons a nos

moutons/, what was the astral attraction that incontestably bound the

reminiscences of Mop to the cognominal distinction of Sir Isaac? I had

prepared a very erudite and subtle treatise upon this query, enlivened by

quotations from the ancient Mystics,--such as Iamblicus and Proclus,--as

well as by a copious reference to the doctrine of the more modern

Spiritualists, from Sir Kenelm Digby and Swedenborg, to Monsieur Cahagnet

and Judge Edwards. It was to be called Inquiry into the Law of

Affinities, by Philomopsos: when, unluckily for my treatise, I arrived at

the knowledge of a fact which, though it did not render the treatise less

curious, knocked on the head the theory upon which it was based. The

baptismal name of the old soldier, Mop's first proprietor and earliest

preceptor, was Isaac; and his master being called in the homely household

by that Christian name, the sound had entered into Mop's youngest and

most endeared associations. His canine affections had done much towards

ripening his scholastic education. "Where is Isaac?" "Call Isaac!"

"Fetch Isaac his hat," etc. Stilled was that name when the old soldier

died; but when heard again, Mop's heart was moved, and in missing the old

master, he felt more at home with the new. As for the title, "Sir," it

was a mere expletive in his ears. Such was the fact, and such the

deduction to be drawn from it. Not that it will satisfy every one. I

know that philosophers who deny all that they have not witnessed, and

refuse to witness what they resolve to deny, will reject the story in

toto; and will prove, by reference to their own dogs, that a dog never

recognizes the name of his master,--never yet could be taught arithmetic.

I know also that there are Mystics who will prefer to believe that Mop

was in direct spiritual communication with unseen Isaacs, or in a state

of clairvoyance, or under the influence of the odic fluid. But did we

ever yet find in human reason a question with only one side to it? Is

not truth a polygon? Have not sages arisen in our day to deny even the

principle of gravity, for which we bad been so long contentedly taking

the word of the great Sir Isaac? It is that blessed spirit of

controversy which keeps the world going; and it is that which, perhaps,

explains why Mr. Waife, when his memory was fairly put to it, could

remember, out of the history of the myriads who have occupied our planet

from the date of Adam to that in which I now write, so very few men whom

the world will agree to call wise, and out of that very few so scant a

percentage with names sufficiently known to make them more popularly

significant of pre-eminent sagacity than if they had been called--Mops.

CHAPTER VI.

The vagrant having got his dog, proceeds to hunt fortune with it,

leaving behind him a trap to catch rats.--What the trap does catch

is "just like his luck."

Sir Isaac, to designate him by his new name, improved much upon

acquaintance. He was still in the ductile season of youth, and took

to learning as an amusement to himself. His last master, a stupid sot,

had not gained his affections; and perhaps even the old soldier, though

gratefully remembered and mourned, had not stolen into his innermost

heart, as Waife and Sophy gently contrived to do. In short, in a very

few days he became perfectly accustomed and extremely attached to them.

When Waife had ascertained the extent of his accomplishments, and added

somewhat to their range in matters which cost no great trouble, he

applied himself to the task of composing a little drama which might bring

them all into more interesting play, and in which though Sophy and

himself were performers the dog had the premier role. And as soon as

this was done, and the dog's performances thus ranged into methodical

order and sequence, he resolved to set off to a considerable town at some

distance, and to which Mr. Rugge was no visitor.

His bill at the cottage made but slight inroad into his pecuniary

resources; for in the intervals of leisure from his instructions to Sir

Isaac, Waife had performed various little services to the lone widow with

whom they lodged, which Mrs. Saunders (such was her name) insisted upon

regarding as money's worth. He had repaired and regulated to a minute an

old clock which had taken no note of time for the last three years; he

had mended all the broken crockery by some cement of his own invention,

and for which she got him the materials. And here his ingenuity was

remarkable, for when there was only a fragment to be found of a cup and a

fragment or two of a saucer, he united them both into some pretty form,

which, if not useful, at all events looked well on a shelf. He bound, in

smart showy papers, sundry tattered old books which had belonged to his

landlady's defunct husband, a Scotch gardener, and which she displayed on

a side table, under the japan tea-tray. More than all, he was of service

to her in her vocation; for Mrs. Saunders eked out a small pension--which

she derived from the affectionate providence of her Scotch husband, in

insuring his life in her favour--by the rearing and sale of poultry; and

Waife saved her the expense of a carpenter by the construction of a new

coop, elevated above the reach of the rats, who had hitherto made sad

ravage amongst the chickens; while he confided to her certain secrets in

the improvement of breed and the cheaper processes of fattening, which

excited her gratitude no less than her wonder. "The fact is," said

Gentleman Waife, "that my life has known makeshifts. Once, in a foreign

country, I kept poultry, upon the principle that the poultry should keep

me."

Strange it was to notice such versatility of invention, such readiness of

resource, such familiarity with divers nooks and crannies in the

practical experience of life, in a man now so hard put to it for a

livelihood. There are persons, however, who might have a good stock of

talent, if they did not turn it all into small change. And you, reader,

know as well as I do, that when a sovereign or a shilling is once broken

into, the change scatters and dispends itself in a way quite

unaccountable. Still coppers are useful in household bills; and when

Waife was really at a pinch, somehow or other, by hook or by crook, he

scraped together intellectual halfpence enough to pay his way.

Mrs. Saunders grew quite fond of her lodgers. Waife she regarded as a

prodigy of genius; Sophy was the prettiest and best of children. Sir

Isaac, she took for granted, was worthy of his owners. But the Comedian

did not confide to her his dog's learning, nor the use to which he

designed to put it. And in still greater precaution, when he took his

leave, he extracted from Mrs. Saunders a solemn promise that she would

set no one on his track in case of impertinent inquiries.

"You see before you," said he, "a man who has enemies, such as rats are

to your chickens: chickens despise rats when raised, as yours are now,

above the reach of claws and teeth. Some day or other I may so raise a

coop for that little one: I am too old for coops. Meanwhile, if a rat

comes sneaking here after us, send it off the wrong way, with a flea in

its ear."

Mrs. Saunders promised, between tears and laughter; blessed Waife, kissed

Sophy, patted Sir Isaac, and stood long at her threshold watching the

three, as the early sun lit their forms receding in the narrow green

lane,--dewdrops sparkling on the hedgerows, and the skylark springing

upward from the young corn.

Then she slowly turned indoors, and her home seemed very solitary. We

can accustom ourselves to loneliness, but we should beware of infringing

the custom. Once admit two or three faces seated at your hearthside, or

gazing out from your windows on the laughing sun, and when they are gone,

they carry off the glow from your grate and the sunbeam from your panes.

Poor Mrs. Saunders! in vain she sought to rouse herself, to put the rooms

to rights, to attend to the chickens to distract her thoughts. The one-

eyed cripple, the little girl, the shaggy-faced dog, still haunted her;

and when at noon she dined all alone off the remnants of the last night's

social supper, the very click of the renovated clock seemed to say,

"Gone, gone;" and muttering, "Ah! gone," she reclined back on her chair,

and indulged herself in a good womanlike cry. From this luxury she was

startled by a knock at the door. "Could they have come back?" No; the

door opened, and a genteel young man, in a black coat and white

neckcloth, stepped in.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am--your name 's Saunders--sell poultry?"

"At your service, sir. Spring chickens?" Poor people, whatever their

grief, must sell their chickens, if they have any to sell.

"Thank you, ma'am; not at this moment. The fact is, that I call to make

some inquiries Have not you lodgers here?"

Lodgers! at that word the expanding soul of Mrs. Saunders reclosed

hermetically; the last warning of Waife revibrated in her ears this white

neckclothed gentleman, was he not a rat?

"No, sir, I ha'n't no lodgers."

"But you have had some lately, eh? a crippled elderly man and a little

girl."

"Don't know anything about them; leastways," said Mrs. Saunders, suddenly

remembering that she was told less to deny facts than to send inquirers

upon wrong directions," leastways, at this blessed time. Pray, sir, what

makes you ask?"

"Why, I was instructed to come down to ------, and find out where this

person, one William Waife, had gone. Arrived yesterday, ma'am. All I

could hear is, that a person answering to his description left the place

several days ago, and had been seen by a boy, who was tending sheep, to

come down the lane to your house, and you were supposed to have lodgers

(you take lodgers sometimes, I think, ma'am), because you had been buying

some trifling articles of food not in your usual way of custom.

Circumstantial evidence, ma'am: you can have no motive to conceal the

truth."

"I should think not indeed, sir," retorted Mrs. Saunders, whom the

ominous words "circumstantial evidence" set doubly on her guard. "I did

see a gentleman such as you mention, and a pretty young lady, about ten

days agone, or so, and they did lodge here a night or two, but they are

gone to--"

"Yes, ma'am,--gone where?"

"Lunnon."

"Really--very likely. By the train or on foot?"

"On foot, I s'pose."

"Thank you, ma'am. If you should see them again, or hear where they are,

oblige me by conveying this card to Mr. Waife. My employer, ma'am, Mr.

Gotobed, Craven Street, Strand,--eminent solicitor. He has something of

importance to communciate to Mr. Waife."

"Yes, sir,--a lawyer; I understand." And as of all ratlike animals in

the world Mrs. Saunders had the ignorance to deem a lawyer was the most

emphatically devouring, she congratulated herself with her whole heart on

the white lies she had told in favour of the intended victims.

The black-coated gentleman having thus obeyed his instructions and

attained his object, nodded, went his way, and regained the fly which he

had left at the turnstile. "Back to the inn," cried he, "quick: I must

be in time for the three o'clock train to London."

And thus terminated the result of the great barrister's first

instructions to his eminent solicitor to discover a lame man and a little

girl. No inquiry, on the whole, could have been more skilfully

conducted. Mr. Gotobed sends his head clerk; the head clerk employs the

policeman of the village; gets upon the right track; comes to the right

house; and is altogether in the wrong,--in a manner highly creditable to

his researches.

"In London, of course: all people of that kind come back to London," said

Mr. Gotobed. "Give me the heads in writing, that I may report to my

distinguished client. Most satisfactory. That young man will push his

way,--businesslike and methodical."

CHAPTER VII.

The cloud has its silver lining.

Thus turning his back on the good fortune which he had so carefully

cautioned Mrs. Saunders against favouring on his behalf, the vagrant was

now on his way to the ancient municipal town of Gatesboro', which, being

the nearest place of fitting opulence and population, Mr. Waife had

resolved to honour with the debut of Sir Isaac as soon as he had

appropriated to himself the services of that promising quadruped.

He had consulted a map of the county before quitting Mr. Merle's roof,

and ascertained that he could reach Gatesboro' by a short cut for foot-

travellers along fields and lanes. He was always glad to avoid the high

road: doubtless for such avoidance he had good reasons. But prudential

reasons were in this instance supported by vagrant inclinations. High

roads are for the prosperous. By-paths and ill-luck go together. But

by-paths have their charm, and ill-luck its pleasant moments.

They passed then from the high road into a long succession of green

pastures, through which a straight public path conducted them into one of

those charming lanes never seen out of this bowery England,--a lane deep

sunk amidst high banks with overhanging oaks, and quivering ash, gnarled

wych-elm, vivid holly and shaggy brambles, with wild convolvulus and

creeping woodbine forcing sweet life through all. Sometimes the banks

opened abruptly, leaving patches of green sward, and peeps through still

sequestered gates, or over moss-grown pales, into the park or paddock of

some rural thane. New villas or old manor-houses on lawny uplands,

knitting, as it were, together England's feudal memories with England's

freeborn hopes,--the old land with its young people; for England is so

old, and the English are so young! And the gray cripple and the bright-

haired child often paused, and gazed upon the demesnes and homes of

owners whose lots were cast in such pleasant places. But there was no

grudging envy in their gaze; perhaps because their life was too remote

from those grand belongings. And therefore they could enjoy and possess

every banquet of the eye. For at least the beauty of what we see is ours

for the moment, on the simple condition that we do not covet the thing

which gives to our eyes that beauty. As the measureless sky and the

unnumbered stars are equally granted to king and to beggar; and in our

wildest ambition we do not sigh for a monopoly of the empyrean, or the

fee-simple of the planets: so the earth too, with all its fenced gardens

and embattled walls, all its landmarks of stern property and churlish

ownership, is ours too by right of eye. Ours to gaze on the fair

possessions with such delight as the gaze can give; grudging to the

unseen owner his other, and, it may be, more troubled rights, as little

as we grudge an astral proprietor his acres of light in Capricorn.

Benignant is the law that saith, "Thou shalt not covet."

When the sun was at the highest our wayfarers found a shadowy nook for

their rest and repast. Before them ran a shallow limpid trout-stream;

on the other side its margin, low grassy meadows, a farmhouse in the

distance, backed by a still grove, from which rose a still church tower

and its still spire. Behind them, a close-shaven sloping lawn terminated

the hedgerow of the lane; seen clearly above it, with parterres of

flowers on the sward, drooping lilacs and laburnums farther back, and a

pervading fragrance from the brief-lived and rich syringas. The cripple

had climbed over a wooden rail that separated the lane from the rill, and

seated himself under the shade of a fantastic hollow thorn-tree. Sophy,

reclined beside him, was gathering some pale scentless violets from a

mound which the brambles had guarded from the sun. The dog had descended

to the waters to quench his thirst, but still stood knee-deep in the

shallow stream, and appeared lost in philosophical contemplation of a

swarm of minnows, which his immersion had disturbed, but which now made

itself again visible on the farther side of the glassy brook, undulating

round and round a tiny rocklet which interrupted the glide of the waves,

and caused them to break into a low melodious murmur. "For these and all

thy mercies, O Lord, make us thankful," said the victim of ill-luck, in

the tritest words of a pious custom. But never, perhaps, at aldermanic

feasts was the grace more sincerely said.

And then he untied the bundle, which the dog, who had hitherto carried it

by the way, had now carefully deposited at his side. "As I live,"

ejaculated Waife, "Mrs. Saunders is a woman in ten thousand. See, Sophy,

not contented with the bread and cheese to which I bade her stint her

beneficence, a whole chicken,--a little cake too for you, Sophy; she has

not even forgotten the salt. Sophy, that woman deserves the handsomest

token of our gratitude; and we will present her with a silver teapot the

first moment we can afford it."

His spirits exhilarated by the unexpected good cheer, the Comedian gave

way to his naturally blithe humour; and between every mouthful he rattled

or rather drolled on, now infant-like, now sage-like. He cast out the

rays of his liberal humour, careless where they fell,--on the child, on

the dog, on the fishes that played beneath the wave, on the cricket that

chirped amidst the grass; the woodpecker tapped the tree, and the

cripple's merry voice answered it in bird-like mimicry. To this riot of

genial babble there was a listener, of whom neither grandfather nor

grandchild was aware. Concealed by thick brushwood a few paces farther

on, a young angler, who might be five or six and twenty, had seated

himself, just before the arrival of our vagrant to those banks and

waters, for the purpose of changing an unsuccessful fly. At the sound of

voices, perhaps suspecting an unlicensed rival, for that part of the

stream was preserved,--he had suspended his task, and noiselessly put

aside the clustering leaves to reconnoitre. The piety of Waife's simple

grace seemed to surprise him pleasingly, for a sweet approving smile

crossed his lips. He continued to look and to listen. He forgot the

fly, and a trout sailed him by unheeded. But Sir Isaac, having probably

satisfied his speculative mind as to the natural attributes of minnows,

now slowly reascended the bank, and after a brief halt and a sniff,

walked majestically towards the hidden observer, looked at him with great

solemnity, and uttered an inquisitive bark,--a bark not hostile, not

menacing; purely and dryly interrogative. Thus detected, the angler

rose; and Waife, whose attention was directed that way by the bark, saw

him, called to Sir Isaac, and said politely, "There is no harm in my dog,

sir."

The young man muttered some inaudible reply, and, lifting up his rod as

in sign of his occupation or excuse for his vicinity, came out from the

intervening foliage, and stepped quietly to Waife's side. Sir Isaac

followed him, sniffed again, seemed satisfied; and seating himself on his

haunches, fixed his attention upon the remains of the chicken which lay

defenceless on the grass. The new comer was evidently of the rank of

gentleman; his figure was slim and graceful, his face pale, meditative,

refined. He would have impressed you at once with the idea of what he

really was,--an Oxford scholar; and you would perhaps have guessed him

designed for the ministry of the Church, if not actually in orders.

CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Waife excites the admiration, and benignly pities the infirmity,

of an Oxford scholar.

"You are str-str-strangers?" said the Oxonian, after a violent exertion

to express himself, caused by an impediment in his speech.

WAIFE.--"Yes, sir, travellers. I trust we are not trespassing: this is

not private ground, I think?"

OXONIAN.--"And if-f-f-f--it were, my f-f-father would not war-n-n you

off-ff--f."

"Is it your father's ground, then? Sir, I beg you a thousand pardons."

The apology was made in the Comedian's grandest style: it imposed greatly

on the young scholar. Waife might have been a duke in disguise; but I

will do the angler the justice to say that such discovery of rank would

have impressed him little more in the vagrant's favour. It had been that

impromptu "grace"--that thanksgiving which the scholar felt was for

something more than the carnal food--which had first commanded his

respect and wakened his interest. Then that innocent careless talk--part

uttered to dog and child, part soliloquized, part thrown out to the ears

of the lively teeming Nature--had touched a somewhat kindred chord in the

angler's soul; for he was somewhat of a poet and much of a soliloquist,

and could confer with Nature, nor feel that impediment in speech which

obstructed his intercourse with men. Having thus far indicated that oral

defect in our new acquaintance, the reader will cheerfully excuse me for

not enforcing it over much. Let it be among the things /subaudita/, as

the sense of it gave to a gifted and aspiring nature, thwarted in the

sublime career of Preacher, an exquisite mournful pain. And I no more

like to raise a laugh at his infirmity behind his back, than I should

before his pale, powerful, melancholy face; therefore I suppress the

infirmity in giving the reply.

OXONIAN.--" On the other side the lane, where the garden slopes downward,

is my father's house. This ground is his property certainly, but he puts

it to its best use, in lending it to those who so piously acknowledge

that Father from whom all good comes. Your child, I presume, sir?"

"My grandchild."

"She seems delicate: I hope you have not far to go?"

"Not very far, thank you, sir. But my little girl looks more delicate

than she is. You are not tired, darling?"

"Oh, not at all!" There was no mistaking the looks of real love

interchanged between the old man and the child; the scholar felt much

interested and somewhat puzzled.

"Who and what could they be? so unlike foot wayfarers!" On the other

hand, too, Waife took a liking to the courteous young man, and conceived

a sincere pity for his physical affliction. But he did not for those

reasons depart from the discreet caution he had prescribed to himself in

seeking new fortunes and shunning old perils, so he turned the subject.

"You are an angler, sir? I suppose the trout in the stream run small?"

"Not very: a little higher up I have caught them at four pounds weight."

WAIFE.--"There goes a fine fish yonder,--see! balancing himself between

those weeds."

OXONIAN.--"Poor fellow, let him be safe to-day. After all, it is a cruel

sport, and I should break myself of it. But it is strange that whatever

our love for Nature we always seek some excuse for trusting ourselves

alone to her. A gun, a rod, a sketch-book, a geologist's hammer, an

entomologist's net, a something."

WAIFE.--"Is it not because all our ideas would run wild if not

concentrated on a definite pursuit? Fortune and Nature are earnest

females, though popular beauties; and they do not look upon coquettish

triflers in the light of genuine wooers."

The Oxonian, who, in venting his previous remark, had thought it likely

he should be above his listener's comprehension, looked surprised. What

pursuits, too, had this one-eyed philosopher?

"You have a definite pursuit, sir?"

"I--alas! when a man moralizes, it is a sign that he has known error: it

is because I have been a trifler that I rail against triflers. And

talking of that, time flies, and we must be off and away."

Sophy re-tied the bundle. Sir Isaac, on whom, meanwhile, she had

bestowed the remains of the chicken, jumped up and described a circle.

"I wish you success in your pursuit, whatever it be," stuttered out the

angler.

"And I no less heartily, sir, wish you success in yours."

"Mine! Success there is beyond my power."

"How, sir? Does it rest so much with others?"

"No, my failure is in myself. My career should be the Church, my pursuit

the cure of souls, and--and--this pitiful infirmity! How can I speak the

Divine Word--I--I--a stutterer!"

The young man did not pause for an answer, but plunged through the

brushwood that bespread the banks of the rill, and his hurried path could

be traced by the wave of the foliage through which he forced his way.

"We all have our burdens," said Gentleman Waife, as Sir Isaac took up the

bundle and stalked on, placid and refreshed.

CHAPTER IX.

The nomad, entering into civilized life, adopts its arts, shaves his

poodle, and puts on a black coat.--Hints at the process by which a

Cast-off exalts himself into a Take-in.

At twilight they stopped at a quiet inn within eight miles of Gatesboro'.

Sophy, much tired, was glad to creep to bed. Waife sat up long after

her; and, in preparation for the eventful morrow, washed and shaved Sir

Isaac. You would not have known the dog again; he was dazzling. Not

Ulysses, rejuvenated by Pallas Athene, could have been more changed for

the better. His flanks revealed a skin most daintily mottled; his tail

became leonine, with an imperial tuft; his mane fell in long curls like

the beard of a Ninevite king; his boots were those of a courtier in the

reign of Charles II.; his eyes looked forth in dark splendour from locks

white as the driven snow. This feat performed, Waife slept the sleep of

the righteous, and Sir Isaac, stretched on the floor beside the bed,

licked his mottled flanks and shivered: "/il faut souffrir pour etre

beau/." Much marvelling, Sophy the next morning beheld the dog; but,

before she was up, Waife had paid the bill and was waiting for her on

the road, impatient to start. He did not heed her exclamation, half

compassionate, half admiring; he was absorbed in thought. Thus they

proceeded slowly on till within two miles of the town, and then Waife

turned aside, entered a wood, and there, with the aid of Sophy, put the

dog upon a deliberate rehearsal of the anticipated drama. The dog was

not in good spirits, but he went through his part with mechanical

accuracy, though slight enthusiasm.

"He is to be relied upon, in spite of his French origin," said Waife.

"All national prejudice fades before the sense of a common interest.

And we shall always find more genuine solidity of character in a French

poodle than in an English mastiff, whenever a poodle is of use to us and

the mastiff is not. But oh, waste of care! oh, sacrifice of time to

empty names! oh, emblem of fashionable education! It never struck me

before,--does it not, child though thou art, strike thee now,--by the

necessities of our drama, this animal must be a French dog?"

"Well, Grandfather?"

"And we have given him an English name! Precious result of our own

scholastic training, taught at preparatory academies precisely that which

avails us naught when we are to face the world! What is to be done?

Unlearn him his own cognomen,--teach him another name,--too late, too

late. We cannot afford the delay."

"I don't see why he should be called any name at all. He observes your

signs just as well without."

"If I had but discovered that at the beginning. Pity! Such a fine name

too. Sir Isaac! /Vanitas vanitatum!/ What desire chiefly kindles the

ambitious? To create a name, perhaps bequeath a title,--exalt into Sir

Isaacs a progeny of slops! And, after all, it is possible (let us hope

it in this instance) that a sensible young dog may learn his letters and

shoulder his musket just as well, though all the appellations by which

humanity knows him be condensed into a pitiful monosyllable.

Nevertheless (as you will find when you are older), people are obliged in

practice to renounce for themselves the application of those rules which

they philosophically prescribe for others. Thus, while I grant that a

change of name for that dog is a question belonging to the policy of Ifs

and Buts, commonly called the policy of Expediency, about which one may

differ from others and one's own self every quarter of an hour, a change

of name for me belongs to the policy of Must and Shall; namely the policy

of Necessity, against which let no dog bark,--though I have known dogs

howl at it! William Waife is no more: he is dead; he is buried; and even

Juliet Araminta is the baseless fabric of a vision."

Sophy raised inquiringly her blue guileless eyes.

"You see before you a man who has used up the name of Waife, and who on

entering the town of Gatesboro' becomes a sober, staid, and respectable

personage, under the appellation of Chapman. You are Miss Chapman.

Rugge and his Exhibition 'leave not a wrack behind.'"

Sophy smiled, and then sighed,--the smile for her grandfather's gay

spirits; wherefore the sigh? Was it that some instinct in that fresh,

loyal nature revolted from the thought of these aliases, which, if

requisite for safety, were still akin to imposture? If so, poor child,

she had much yet to set right with her conscience! All I can say is,

that after she had smiled she sighed. And more reasonably might a reader

ask his author to subject a zephyr to the microscope than a female's sigh

to analysis.

"Take the dog with you, my dear, back into the lane; I will join you in a

few minutes. You are neatly dressed, and, if not, would look so. I, in

this old coat, have the air of a pedler, so I will change it, and enter

the town of Gatesboro' in the character of--a man whom you will soon see

before you. Leave those things alone, de-Isaacized Sir Isaac! Follow

your mistress,--go!"

Sophy left the wood, and walked on slowly towards the town, with her hand

pensively resting on Sir Isaac's head. In less than ten minutes she was

joined by Waife, attired in respectable black; his hat and shoes well

brushed; a new green shade to his eye; and with his finest air of /Pere

noble/. He was now in his favourite element. HE WAS ACTING: call it not

imposture. Was Lord Chatham an impostor when he draped his flannels into

the folds of the toga, and arranged the curls of his wig so as to add

more sublime effect to the majesty of his brow and the terrors of its

nod? And certainly, considering that Waife, after all, was but a

professional vagabond, considering all the turns and shifts to which he

has been put for bread and salt, the wonder is, not that he is full of

stage tricks and small deceptions, but that he has contrived to retain at

heart so much childish simplicity. When a man for a series of years has

only had his wits to live by, I say not that he is necessarily a rogue,--

he may be a good fellow; but you can scarcely expect his code of honour

to be precisely the same as Sir Philip Sidney's. Homer expresses through

the lips of Achilles that sublime love of truth which even in those

remote times was the becoming characteristic of a gentleman and a

soldier. But then, Achilles is well off during his whole life, which,

though distinguished, is short. On the other hand Ulysses, who is sorely

put to it, kept out of his property in Ithaca, and, in short, living on

his wits, is not the less befriended by the immaculate Pallas because his

wisdom savours somewhat of stage trick and sharp practice. And as to

convenient aliases and white fibs, where would have been the use of his

wits, if Ulysses had disdained such arts, and been magnanimously munched

up by Polyphemus? Having thus touched on the epic side of Mr. Waife's

character with the clemency due to human nature, but with the caution

required by the interests of society, permit him to resume a "duplex

course," sanctioned by ancient precedent, but not commended to modern

imitation.

Just as our travellers neared the town, the screech of a railway whistle

resounded towards the right,--a long train rushed from the jaws of a

tunnel and shot into the neighbouring station.

"How lucky!" exclaimed Waife; "make haste, my dear!"

Was he going to take the train? Pshaw! he was at his journey's end.

He was going to mix with the throng that would soon stream through those

white gates into the town; he was going to purloin the respectable

appearance of a passenger by the train. And so well did he act the part

of a bewildered stranger just vomited forth into unfamiliar places by one

of those panting steam monsters,--so artfully, amidst the busy

competition of nudging elbows, over-bearing shoulders, and the

impedimenta of carpet-bags, portmanteaus, babies in arms, and shin-

assailing trucks, did he look round, consequentially, on the /qui vive/,

turning his one eye, now on Sophy, now on Sir Isaac, and griping his

bundle to his breast as if he suspected all his neighbours to be Thugs,

condottieri, and swellmob,--that in an instant fly-men, omnibus drivers,

cads, and porters marked him for their own. "Gatesboro' Arms," "Spread

Eagle," "Royal Hotel," "Saracen's Head; very comfortable, centre of High

Street, opposite the Town Hall,"--were shouted, bawled, whispered, or

whined into his ear.

"Is there an honest porter?" asked the Comedian, piteously. An Irishman

presented himself. "And is it meself can serve your honour?"--"Take this

bundle, and walk on before me to the High Street."--"Could not I take the

bundle, Grandfather? The man will charge so much," said the prudent

Sophy. "Hush! you indeed!" said the Pere Noble, as if addressing an

exiled Altesse royale,--"you take a bundle--Miss--Chapman!"

They soon gained the High Street. Waife examined the fronts of the

various inns which they passed by with an eye accustomed to decipher the

physiognomy of hostelries. The Saracen's Head pleased him, though its

imposing size daunted Sophy. He arrested the steps of the porter,

"Follow me close," and stepped across the open threshold into the bar.

The landlady herself was there, portly and imposing, with an auburn

toupet, a silk gown, a cameo brooch, and an ample bosom.

"You have a private sitting-room, ma'am?" said the Comedian, lifting his

hat. There are so many ways of lifting a hat,-for instance, the way for

which Louis XIV. was so renowned. But the Comedian's way on the present

occasion rather resembled that of the late Duke of B--------, not quite

royal, but as near to royalty as becomes a subject. He added, recovering

his head,--"And on the first floor?" The landlady did not courtesy, but

she bowed, emerged from the bar, and set foot on the broad stairs; then,

looking back graciously, her eyes rested on Sir Isaac, who had stalked

forth in advance and with expansive nostrils sniffed. She hesitated.

"Your dog, sir! shall Boots take it round to the stables?"

"The stables, ma'am--the stables, my dear," turning to Sophy, with a

smile more ducal than the previous bow; "what would they say at home if

they heard that noble animal was consigned to-stables? Ma'am, my dog is

my companion, and as much accustomed to drawing-rooms as I am myself."

Still the landlady paused. The dog might be accustomed to drawing-rooms,

but her drawing-room was not accustomed to dogs. She had just laid down

a new carpet. And such are the strange and erratic affinities in nature,

such are the incongruous concatenations in the cross-stitch of ideas,

that there are associations between dogs and carpets, which, if wrongful

to the owners of dogs, beget no unreasonable apprehensions in the

proprietors of carpets. So there stood the landlady, and there stood the

dog! and there they might be standing to this day had not the Comedian

dissolved the spell. "Take up my effects again," said he, turning to the

porter; "doubtless they are more habituated to distinguish between dog

and dog at the Royal Hotel."

The landlady was mollified in a moment. Nor was it only the rivalries

that necessarily existed between the Saracen's Head and the Royal Hotel

that had due weight with her. A gentleman who could not himself deign to

carry even that small bundle must be indeed a gentleman! Had he come

with a portmanteau--even with a carpet-bag--the porter's service would

have been no evidence of rank; but accustomed as she was chiefly to

gentlemen engaged in commercial pursuits, it was new to her experience,

--a gentleman with effects so light, and hands so aristocratically

helpless. Herein were equally betokened the two attributes of birth and

wealth; namely, the habit of command and the disdain of shillings. A

vague remembrance of the well-known story how a man and his dog had

arrived at the Granby Hotel, at Harrowgate, and been sent away roomless

to the other and less patrician establishment, because, while he had a

dog, he had not a servant; when, five minutes after such dismissal, came

carriages and lackeys and an imperious valet, asking for his grace the

Duke of A--------, who had walked on before with his dog, and who, oh,

everlasting thought of remorse! had been sent away to bring the other

establishment into fashion,--a vague reminiscence of that story, I say,

flashed upon the landlady's mind, and she exclaimed, "I only thought,

sir, you might prefer the stables; of course, it is as you please. This

way, sir. He is a fine animal, indeed, and seems mild."

"You may bring up the bundle, porter," quoth the Pere Noble. "Take my

arm, my dear; these steps are very steep."

The landlady threw open the door of a handsome sitting-room,--her best:

she pulled down the blinds to shut out the glare of the sun; then

retreating to the threshold awaited further orders.

"Rest yourself, my dear," said the Actor, placing Sophy on a couch with

that tender respect for sex and childhood which so specially belongs to

the high-bred. "The room will do, ma'am. I will let you know later

whether we shall require beds. As to dinner, I am not particular,--

a cutlet, a chicken, what you please, at seven o'clock. Stay, I beg your

pardon for detaining you, but where does the Mayor live?"

"His private residence is a mile out of the town, but his counting-house

is just above the Town Hall,--to the right, sir."

"Name?"

"Mr. Hartopp!"

"Hartopp! Ah! to be sure! Hartopp. His political opinions, I think,

are" (ventures at a guess) "enlightened?"

LANDLADY.--"Very much so, sir. Mr. Hartopp is highly respected."

WAIFE.--"The chief municipal officer of a town so thriving--fine shops

and much plate glass--must march with the times. I think I have heard

that Mr. Hartopp promotes the spread of intelligence and the propagation

of knowledge."

LANDLADY (rather puzzled).--"I dare say, sir. The Mayor takes great

interest in the Gatesboro' Athemeum and Literary Institute."

WAIFE.--"Exactly what I should have presumed from his character and

station. I will detain you no longer, ma'am" (ducal bow). The landlady

descended the stairs. Was her guest a candidate for the representation

of the town at the next election? March with the times!--spread of

intelligence! All candidates she ever knew had that way of expressing

themselves,--"March" and "Spread." Not an address had parliamentary

aspirant put forth to the freemen and electors of Gatesboro' but what

"March" had been introduced by the candidate, and "Spread" been suggested

by the committee. Still she thought that her guest, upon the whole,

looked and bowed more like a member of the Upper House,--perhaps one of

the amiable though occasionally prosy peers who devote the teeth of

wisdom to the cracking of those very hard nuts, "How to educate the

masses," "What to do with our criminals," and such like problems, upon

which already have been broken so many jawbones tough as that with which

Samson slew the Philistines.

"Oh, Grandfather!" sighed Sophy, "what are you about? We shall be

ruined, you, too, who are so careful not to get into debt. And what have

we left to pay the people here?"

"Sir Isaac! and THIS!" returned the Comedian, touching his forehead. "Do

not alarm yourself: stay here and repose; and don't let Sir Isaac out of

the room on any account!"

He took off his hat, brushed the nap carefully with his sleeve, replaced

it on his head,--not jauntily aside, not like a jeune premier, but with

equilateral brims, and in composed fashion, like a /pere noble/; then,

making a sign to Sir Isaac to rest quiet, be passed to the door; there he

halted, and turning towards Sophy, and, meeting her wistful eyes, his

own eye moistened. "Ah!" he murmured, "Heaven grant I may succeed now,

for if I do, then you shall indeed be a little lady!"

He was gone.

CHAPTER X.

Showing with what success Gentleman Waife assumes the pleasing part

of friend to the enlightenment of the age and the progress of the

people.

On the landing-place, Waife encountered the Irish porter, who, having

left the bundle in the drawing-room, was waiting patiently to be paid for

his trouble.

The Comedian surveyed the good-humoured shrewd face, on every line of

which was writ the golden maxim, "Take things asy." "I beg your pardon,

my friend; I had almost forgotten you. Have you been long in this town?"

"Four years, and long life to your honour!"

"Do you know Mr. Hartopp, the Mayor?"

"Is it his worship the Mayor? Sure and it is the Mayor as has made a man

o' Mike Callaghan."

The Comedian evinced urbane curiosity to learn the history of that

process, and drew forth a grateful tale. Four summers ago Mike had

resigned the "first gem of the sea" in order to assist in making hay for

a Saxon taskmaster.

Mr. Hartopp, who farmed largely, had employed him in that rural

occupation. Seized by a malignant fever, Mr. Hartopp had helped him

through it, and naturally conceived a liking for the man he helped.

Thus, as Mike became convalescent, instead of passing the poor man back

to his own country, which at that time gave little employment to the

surplus of its agrarian population beyond an occasional shot at a

parson,--an employment, though animated, not lucrative, he exercised

Mike's returning strength upon a few light jobs in his warehouse; and

finally, Mike marrying imprudently the daughter of a Gatesboro'

operative, Mr. Hartopp set him up in life as a professional messenger

and porter, patronized by the Corporation. The narrative made it evident

that Mr. Hartopp was a kind and worthy man, and the Comedian's heart

warmed towards him.

"An honour to our species, this Mr. Hartopp!" said Waife, striking his

staff upon the floor; "I covet his acquaintance. Would he see you if you

called at his counting-house?"

Mike replied in the affirmative with eager pride. "Mr. Hartopp would see

him at once. Sure, did not the Mayor know that time was money? Mr.

Hartopp was not a man to keep the poor waiting."

"Go down and stay outside the hall door; you shall take a note for me to

the Mayor."

Waife then passed into the bar, and begged the favour of a sheet of note-

paper. The landlady seated him at her own desk, and thus wrote the

Comedian:

"Mr. Chapman presents his compliments to the Mayor of Gatesboro',

and requests the Honour of a very short interview. Mr. Chapman's

deep interest in the permanent success of those literary institutes

which are so distinguished a feature of this enlightened age, and

Mr. Mayor's well-known zeal in the promotion of those invaluable

societies, must be Mr. Chapman's excuse for the liberty he ventures

to take in this request. Mr. C. may add that of late he has

earnestly directed his attention to the best means of extracting new

uses from those noble but undeveloped institutions.

"Saracens Head, &c."

This epistle, duly sealed and addressed, Waife delivered to the care of

Mike Callaghan; and simultaneously he astounded that functionary with no

less a gratuity than half a crown. Cutting short the fervent blessings

which this generous donation naturally called forth, the Comedian said,

with his happiest combination of suavity and loftiness, "And should the

Mayor ask you what sort of person I am,--for I have not the honour to be

known to him, and there are so many adventurers about, that he might

reasonably expect me to be one, perhaps you can say that I don't look

like a person he need be afraid to admit. You know a gentleman by sight!

Bring back an answer as soon as may be; perhaps I sha'n't stay long in

the town. You will find me in the High Street, looking at the shops."

The porter took to his legs, impatient to vent his overflowing heart upon

the praises of this munificent stranger. A gentleman, indeed! Mike

should think so! If Mike's good word with the Mayor was worth money,

Gentleman Waife had put his half-crown out upon famous interest.

The Comedian strolled along the High Street, and stopped before a

stationer's shop, at the window of which was displayed a bill, entitled,

GATESBORO' ATHENIEUM

AND LITERARY INSTITUTE.

LECTURE ON CONCHOLOGY.

BY PROFESSOR LONG.

Author of "Researches into the Natural

History of Limpets."

Waife entered the shop, and lifted his hat,--"Permit me, sir, to look at

that hand-bill."

"Certainly, sir; but the lecture is over; you can see by the date: it

came off last week. We allow the bills of previous proceedings at our

Athenaeum to be exposed at the window till the new bills are prepared,

--keeps the whole thing alive, sir."

"Conchology," said the Comedian, "is a subject which requires deep

research, and on which a learned man may say much without fear of

contradiction. But how far is Gatesboro' from the British Ocean?"

"I don't know exactly, sir,--a long way."

"Then, as shells are not familiar to the youthful remembrances of your

fellow-townsmen, possibly the lecturer may have found an audience rather

select than numerous."

"It was a very attentive audience, sir, and highly respectable: Miss

Grieve's young ladies' (the genteelest seminary in the town) attended."

WAIFE.--"Highly creditable to the young ladies. But, pardon me, is your

Athenaeum a Mechanics' institute?"

SHOPMAN.--"It was so called at first. But, somehow or other, the mere

operatives fell off, and it was thought advisable to change the word

'Mechanics' into the word 'Literary.' Gatesboro' is not a manufacturing

town, and the mechanics here do not realize the expectations of that

taste for abstract science on which the originators of these societies

founded their--"

WAIFE (insinuatingly interrupting).--"Their calculations of intellectual

progress and their tables of pecuniary return. Few of these societies,

I am told, are really self-supporting: I suppose Professor Long is!--and

if he resides in Gatesboro', and writes on limpets, he is probably a man

of independent fortune."

SHOPMAN.--"Why, sir, the professor was engaged from London,--five guineas

and his travelling expenses. The funds of the society could ill afford

such outlay; but we have a most worthy mayor, who, assisted by his

foreman, Mr. Williams, our treasurer, is, I may say, the life and soul

of the institute."

"A literary man himself, your mayor?"

The shopman smiled. "Not much in that way, sir; but anything to

enlighten the working classes. This is Professor Long's great work upon

limpets, two vols. post octavo. The Mayor has just presented it to the

library of the institute. I was cutting the leaves when you came in."

"Very prudent in you, sir. If limpets were but able to read printed

character in the English tongue, this work would have more interest for

them than the ablest investigations upon the political and social history

of man. But," added the Comedian, shaking his head mournfully, "the

human species is not testaceous; and what the history of man might be to

a limpet, the history of limpets is to a man." So saying, Mr. Waife

bought a sheet of cardboard and some gilt foil, relifted his hat, and

walked out.

The shopman scratched his head thoughtfully; he glanced from his window

at the form of the receding stranger, and mechanically resumed the task

of cutting those leaves, which, had the volumes reached the shelves of

the library uncut, would have so remained to the crack of doom.

Mike Callaghan now came in sight, striding fast; "Mr. Mayor sends his

love--bother-o'-me--his respex; and will be happy to see your honour."

In three minutes more the Comedian was seated in a little parlour that

adjoined Mr. Hartopp's counting-house,--Mr. Hartopp seated also, vis-a-

vis. The Mayor had one of those countenances upon which good-nature

throws a sunshine softer than Claude ever shed upon canvas. Josiah

Hartopp had risen in life by little other art than that of quiet

kindliness. As a boy at school, he had been ever ready to do a good turn

to his school-fellows; and his school-fellows at last formed themselves

into a kind of police, for the purpose of protecting Jos. Hartopp's pence

and person from the fists and fingers of each other. He was evidently so

anxious to please his master, not from fear of the rod, but the desire to

spare that worthy man the pain of inflicting it, that he had more trouble

taken with his education than was bestowed on the brightest intellect

that school ever reared; and where other boys were roughly flogged, Jos.

Hartopp was soothingly patted on the head, and told not to be cast down,

but try again. The same even-handed justice returned the sugared chalice

to his lips in his apprenticeship to an austere leather-seller, who, not

bearing the thought to lose sight of so mild a face, raised him into

partnership, and ultimately made him his son-in-law and residuary

legatee. Then Mr. Hartopp yielded to the advice of friends who desired

his exaltation, and from a leather-seller became a tanner. Hides

themselves softened their asperity to that gentle dealer, and melted into

golden fleeces. He became rich enough to hire a farm for health and

recreation. He knew little of husbandry, but he won the heart of a

bailiff who might have reared a turnip from a deal table. Gradually the

farm became his fee-simple, and the farmhouse expanded into a villa.

Wealth and honours flowed in from a brimmed horn. The surliest man in

the town would have been ashamed of saying a rude thing to Jos. Hartopp.

If he spoke in public, though he hummed and hawed lamentably, no one was

so respectfully listened to. As for the parliamentary representation of

the town, he could have returned himself for one seat and Mike Callaghan

for the other, had he been so disposed. But he was too full of the milk

of humanity to admit into his veins a drop from the gall of party. He

suffered others to legislate for his native land, and (except on one

occasion when he had been persuaded to assist in canvassing, not indeed

the electors of Gatesboro', but those of a distant town in which he

possessed some influence, on behalf of a certain eminent orator) Jos.

Hartopp was only visible in politics whenever Parliament was to be

petitioned in favour of some humane measure, or against a tax that would

have harassed the poor.

If anything went wrong with him in his business, the whole town combined

to set it right for him. Was a child born to him, Gatesboro' rejoiced as

a mother. Did measles or scarlatina afflict his neighbourhood, the first

anxiety of Gatesboro' was for Mr. Hartopp's nursery. No one would have

said Mrs. Hartopp's nursery; and when in such a department the man's name

supersedes the woman's, can more be said in proof of the tenderness he

excites? In short, Jos. Hartopp was a notable instance of a truth not

commonly recognized; namely, that affection is power, and that, if you do

make it thoroughly and unequivocally clear that you love your neighbours,

though it may not be quite so well as you love yourself,--still,

cordially and disinterestedly, you will find your neighbours much better

fellows than Mrs. Grundy gives them credit for,--but always provided that

your talents be not such as to excite their envy, nor your opinions such

as to offend their prejudices.

MR. HARTOPP.--"You take an interest, you say, in literary institutes, and

have studied the subject?"

THE COMEDIAN.--"Of late, those institutes have occupied my thoughts as

representing the readiest means of collecting liberal ideas into a

profitable focus."

MR. HARTOPP.--"Certainly it is a great thing to bring classes together in

friendly union."

THE COMEDIAN.--"For laudable objects."

MR. HARTOPP.--"To cultivate their understandings."

THE COMEDIAN.--"To warm their hearts."

MR. HARTOPP.--"To give them useful knowledge."

THE COMEDIAN.--"And pleasurable sensations."

MR. HARTOPP.--"In a word, to instruct them."

THE COMEDIAN.--"And to amuse."

"Eh!" said the Mayor,--"amuse!"

Now, every one about the person of this amiable man was on the constant

guard to save him from the injurious effects of his own benevolence; and

accordingly his foreman, hearing that he was closeted with a stranger,

took alarm, and entered on pretence of asking instructions about an order

for hides, in reality, to glower upon the intruder, and keep his master's

hands out of imprudent pockets.

Mr. Hartopp, who, though not brilliant, did not want for sense, and

was a keener observer than was generally supposed, divined the kindly

intentions of his assistant. "A gentleman interested in the Gatesboro'

Athenaeum. My foreman, sir,--Mr. Williams, the treasurer of our

institute. Take a chair, Williams."

"You said to amuse, Mr. Chapman, but--"

"You did not find Professor Long on conchology amusing."

"Why," said the Mayor, smiling blandly, "I myself am not a man of

science, and therefore his lecture, though profound, was a little dry

to me."

"Must it not have been still more dry to your workmen, Mr. Mayor?"

"They did not attend," said Williams. "Up-hill task we have to secure

the Gatesboro' mechanics, when anything really solid is to be addressed

to their understandings."

"Poor things, they are so tired at night," said the Mayor,

compassionately; "but they wish to improve themselves, and they take

books from the library."

"Novels," quoth the stern Williams: "it will be long before they take out

that valuable 'History of Limpets."

"If a lecture were as amusing as a novel, would not they attend it?"

asked the Comedian.

"I suppose they would," returned Mr. Williams. "But our object is to

instruct; and instruction, sir--"

"Could be made amusing. If, for instance, the lecturer could produce a

live shell-fish, and, by showing what kindness can do towards developing

intellect and affection in beings without soul,--make man himself more

kind to his fellow-man?"

Mr. Williams laughed grimly. "Well, sir!"

"This is what I should propose to do."

"With a shell-fish!" cried the Mayor.

"No, sir; with a creature of nobler attributes,--A DOG!"

The listeners stared at each other like dumb animals as Waife continued,-

"By winning interest for the individuality of a gifted quadruped, I

should gradually create interest in the natural history of its species.

I should lead the audience on to listen to comparisons with other members

of the great family which once associated with Adam. I should lay the

foundation for an instructive course of natural history, and from

vertebrated mammifers who knows but we might gradually arrive at the

nervous system of the molluscous division, and produce a sensation by the

production of a limpet?"

"Theoretical," said Mr. Williams.

"Practical, sir; since I take it for granted that the Athenaeum, at

present, is rather a tax upon the richer subscribers, including Mr.

Mayor."

"Nothing to speak of," said the mild Hartopp. Williams looked towards

his master with unspeakable love, and groaned. "Nothing indeed--oh!"

"These societies should be wholly self-supporting," said the Comedian,

"and inflict no pecuniary loss upon Mr. Mayor."

"Certainly," said Williams, "that is the right principle. Mr. Mayor

should be protected."

"And if I show you how to make these societies self-supporting--"

"We should be very much obliged to you."

"I propose, then, to give an exhibition at your rooms." Mr. Williams

nudged the Mayor, and coughed, the Comedian not appearing to remark cough

nor nudge.

"Of course gratuitously. I am not a professional lecturer, gentlemen."

Mr. Williams looked charmed to hear it.

"And when I have made my first effort successful, as I feel sure it will

be, I will leave it to you, gentlemen, to continue my undertaking. But I

cannot stay long here. If the day after to-morrow--"

"That is our ordinary soiree night," said the Mayor. "But you said a

dog, sir,--dogs not admitted,-eh, Williams?"

MR. WILLIAMS.--"A mere by-law, which the subcommittee can suspend if

necessary. But would not the introduction of a live animal be less

dignified than--"

"A dead failure," put in the Comedian, gravely. The Mayor would have

smiled, but he was afraid of doing so lest he might hurt the feelings of

Mr. Williams, who did not seem to take the joke.

"We are a purely intellectual body," said the latter gentleman, "and a

dog--"

"A learned dog, I presume," observed the Mayor.

MR. WILLIAMS (nodding).--"Might form a dangerous precedent for the

introduction of other quadrupeds. We might thus descend even to the

level of a learned pig. We are not a menagerie, Mr.--Mr.--"

"Chapman," said the Mayor, urbanely.

"Enough," said the Comedian, rising with his grand air; "if I considered

myself at liberty, gentlemen, to say who and what I am, you would be sure

that I am not trifling with what I consider a very grave and important

subject. As to suggesting anything derogatory to the dignity of science,

and the eminent repute of the Gatesboro' Athenaeum, it would be idle to

vindicate myself. These gray hairs are--"

He did not conclude that sentence, save by a slight wave of the hand.

The two burgesses bowed reverentially, and the Comedian went on,--

"But when you speak of precedent, Mr. Williams, allow me to refer you to

precedents in point. Aristotle wrote to Alexander the Great for animals

to exhibit to the Literary Institute of Athens. At the colleges in Egypt

lectures were delivered on a dog called Anubis, as inferior, I boldly

assert, to that dog which I have referred to, as an Egyptian College to

a British Institute. The ancient Etrurians, as is shown by the erudite

Schweighduser in that passage--you understand Greek, I presume, Mr.

Williams?"

Mr. Williams could not say he did.

THE COMEDIAN.--"Then I will not quote that passage in Schweighauser upon

the Molossian dogs in general, and the dog of Alcibiades in particular.

But it proves beyond a doubt, that, in every ancient literary institute,

learned dogs were highly estimated; and there was even a philosophical

Academy called the Cynic,--that is, Doggish, or Dog-school, of which

Diogenes was the most eminent professor. He, you know, went about with a

lantern looking for an honest man, and could not find one! Why? Because

the Society of Dogs had raised his standard of human honesty to an

impracticable height. But I weary you; otherwise I could lecture on in

this way for the hour together, if you think the Gatesboro' operatives

prefer erudition to amusement."

"A great scholar," whispered Mr. Williams.--Aloud: "and I've nothing to

say against your precedents, sir. I think you have made out that part of

the case. But, after all, a learned dog is not so very uncommon as to be

in itself the striking attraction which you appear to suppose."

"It is not the mere learning of my dog of which I boast," replied the

Comedian. "Dogs may be learned, and men too; but it is the way that

learning is imparted, whether by dog or man, for the edification of the

masses, in order, as Pope expresses himself, 'to raise the genius and to

mend the heart' that alone adorns the possessor, exalts the species,

interests the public, and commands the respect of such judges as I see

before me." The grand bow.

"Ah!" said Mr. Williams, hesitatingly, "sentiments that do honour to

your head and heart; and if we could, in the first instance, just see the

dog privately."

"'Nothing easier!" said the Comedian. "Will you do me the honour to

meet him at tea this evening?"

"Rather will you not come and take tea at my house?" said the Mayor,

with a shy glance towards Mr. Williams.

THE COMEDIAN.--"You are very kind; but my time is so occupied that I have

long since made it a rule to decline all private invitations out of my

own home. At my years, Mr. Mayor, one may be excused for taking leave of

society and its forms; but you are comparatively young men. I presume on

the authority of these gray hairs, and I shall expect you this evening,

--say at nine o'clock." The Actor waved his hand graciously and

withdrew.

"A scholar AND a gentleman," said Williams, emphatically. And the Mayor,

thus authorized to allow vent to his kindly heart, added, "A humourist,

and a pleasant one. Perhaps he is right, and our poor operatives would

thank us more for a little innocent amusement than for those lectures,

which they may be excused for thinking rather dull, since even you fell

asleep when Professor Long got into the multilocular shell of the very

first class of cephalous mollusca; and it is my belief that harmless

laughter has a good moral effect upon the working class,--only don't

spread it about that I said so, for we know excellent persons of a

serious turn of mind whose opinions that sentiment might shock."

CHAPTER XI.

HISTORICAL PROBLEM: "Is Gentleman Waife a swindler or a man of

genius?" ANSWER: "Certainly a swindler, if he don't succeed."

Julius Caesar owed two millions when he risked the experiment of

being general in Gaul. If Julius Caesar had not lived to cross the

Rubicon and pay off his debts, what would his creditors have called

Julius Caesar?

I need not say that Mr. Hartopp and his foreman came duly to tea, but the

Comedian exhibited Sir Isaac's talents very sparingly,--just enough to

excite admiration without sating curiosity. Sophy, whose pretty face and

well-bred air were not unappreciated, was dismissed early to bed by a

sign from her grandfather, and the Comedian then exerted his powers to

entertain his visitors, so that even Sir Isaac was soon forgotten. Hard

task, by writing, to convey a fair idea of this singular vagrant's

pleasant vein. It was not so much what he said as the way of saying it,

which gave to his desultory talk the charm of humour. He had certainly

seen an immense deal of life somehow or other; and without appearing at

the time to profit much by observation, without perhaps being himself

conscious that he did profit, there was something in the very

/enfantillage/ of his loosest prattle, by which, with a glance of the

one lustrous eye and a twist of the mobile lip, he could convey the

impression of an original genius playing with this round world of ours--

tossing it up, catching it again--easily as a child plays with its party-

coloured ball. His mere book-knowledge was not much to boast of, though

early in life he must have received a fair education. He had a

smattering of the ancient classics, sufficient, perhaps, to startle

the unlearned. If he had not read them, he had read about them; and at

various odds and ends of his life he had picked up acquaintance with the

popular standard modern writers. But literature with him was the

smallest stripe in the party-coloured ball. Still it was astonishing how

far and wide the Comedian could spread the sands of lore that the winds

had drifted round the door of his playful, busy intellect. Where, for

instance, could he ever have studied the nature and prospects of

Mechanics' Institutes? and yet how well he seemed to understand them.

Here, perhaps, his experience in one kind of audience helped him to the

key to all miscellaneous assemblages. In fine, the man was an actor; and

if he had thought fit to act the part of Professor Long himself, he would

have done it to the life.

The two burghers had not spent so pleasant an evening for many years. As

the clock struck twelve, the Mayor, whose gig had been in waiting a whole

hour to take him to his villa, rose reluctantly to depart.

"And," said Williams, "the bills must be out to-morrow. What shall we

advertise?"

"The simpler the better," said Waife; "only pray head the performance

with the assurance that it is under the special patronage of his worship

the Mayor."

The Mayor felt his breast swell as if he had received some overwhelming

personal obligation.

"Suppose it run thus," continued the Comedian,--"Illustrations from

Domestic Life and Natural History, with LIVE examples: PART FIRST--THE

DOG!"

"It will take," said the Mayor: "dogs are such popular animals!"

"Yes," said Williams; "and though for that very reason some might think

that by the 'live example of a dog' we compromised the dignity of the

Institute, still the importance of Natural History--"

"And," added the Comedian, "the sanctifying influences of domestic

life--"

"May," concluded Mr. Williams, "carry off whatever may seem to the higher

order of minds a too familiar attraction in the--dog!"

"I do not fear the result," said Waife, "provided the audience be

sufficiently numerous; for that (which is an indispensable condition to a

fair experiment) I issue hand-bills, only where distributed by the

Mayor."

"Don't be too sanguine. I distributed bills on behalf of Professor Long,

and the audience was not numerous. How ever, I will do my best. Is

there nothing more in which I can be of use to you, Mr. Chapman?"

"Yes, later." Williams took alarm, and approached the Mayor's breast-

pocket protectingly. The Comedian withdrew him aside and whispered, "I

intend to give the Mayor a little outline of the exhibition, and bring

him into it, in order that his fellow-townsmen may signify their regard

for him by a cheer; it will please his good heart, and be touching,

you'll see--mum!" Williams shook the Comedian by the hand, relieved,

affected, and confiding.

The visitors departed; and the Comedian lighted his hand-candlestick,

whistled to Sir Isaac, and went to bed without one compunctious thought

upon the growth of his bill and the deficit in his pockets. And yet it

was true, as Sophy implied, that the Comedian had an honest horror of

incurring debt. He generally thought twice before he risked owing even

the most trifling bill; and when the bill came in, if it left him

penniless, it was paid. And, now, what reckless extravagance! The best

apartments! dinner, tea, in the first hotel of the town! half-a-crown to

a porter! That lavish mode of life renewed with the dawning sun! not a

care for the morrow; and I dare not conjecture how few the shillings in

that purse. What aggravation, too, of guilt! Bills incurred without

means under a borrowed name! I don't pretend to be a lawyer; but it

looks to me very much like swindling. Yet the wretch sleeps. But are we

sure that we are not shallow moralists? Do we carry into account the

right of genius to draw bills upon the Future? Does not the most prudent

general sometimes burn his ships? Does not the most upright merchant

sometimes take credit on the chance of his ventures? May not that

peaceful slumberer be morally sure that he has that argosy afloat in his

own head, which amply justifies his use of the "Saracen's"? If his plan

should fail? He will tell you that is impossible! But if it should

fail, you say. Listen; there runs a story-I don't vouch for its truth:

I tell it as it was told to me--there runs a storv that in the late

Russian war a certain naval veteran, renowned for professional daring and

scientific invention, was examined before some great officials as to the

chances of taking Cronstadt. "If you send me," said the admiral, "with

so many ships of the line, and so many gunboats, Cronstadt of course will

be taken." "But," said a prudent lord, "suppose it should not be taken?"

"That is impossible: it must be taken!" "Yes," persisted my lord, "you

think so, no doubt; but still, if it should not be taken,--what then?"

"What then?--why, there's an end of the British fleet!" The great men

took alarm, and that admiral was not sent. But they misconstrued the

meaning of his answer. He meant not to imply any considerable danger to

the British fleet. He meant to prove that one hypothesis was impossible

by the suggestion of a counter-impossibility more self-evident. "It is

impossible but what I shall take Cronstadt!" "But if you don't take it!"

"It is impossible but what I shall take it; for if I don't take it,

there's an end of the British fleet; and as it is impossible that there

should be an end of the British fleet, it is impossible that I should not

take Cronstadt!"--Q.E.D.

CHAPTER XII.

In which everything depends on Sir Isaac's success in discovering

the law of attraction.

On the appointed evening, at eight o'clock, the great room of the

Gatesboro' Athenaeum was unusually well filled. Not only had the Mayor

exerted himself to the utmost for that object, but the hand-bill itself

promised a rare relief from the prosiness of abstract enlightenment and

elevated knowledge. Moreover, the stranger himself had begun to excite

speculation and curiosity. He was an amateur, not a cut-and-dry

professor. The Mayor and Mr. Williams had both spread the report that

there was more in him than appeared on the surface; prodigiously learned,

but extremely agreeable, fine manners, too!--Who could he be? Was

Chapman his real name? etc.

The Comedian had obtained permission to arrange the room beforehand.

He had the raised portion of it for his stage, and he had been fortunate

enough to find a green curtain to be drawn across it. From behind this

screen he now emerged and bowed. The bow redoubled the first

conventional applause. He then began a very short address,--extremely

well delivered, as you may suppose, but rather in the conversational than

the oratorical style. He said it was his object to exhibit the

intelligence of that Universal Friend of Man, the Dog, in some manner

appropriate, not only to its sagacious instincts, but to its affectionate

nature, and to convey thereby the moral that talents, however great,

learning, however deep, were of no avail, unless rendered serviceable to

Man. (Applause.) He must be pardoned then, if, in order to effect this

object, he was compelled to borrow some harmless effects from the stage.

In a word, his dog could represent to them the plot of a little drama.

And he, though he could not say that he was altogether unaccustomed to

public speaking (here a smile, modest, but august as that of some famous

parliamentary orator who makes his first appearance at a vestry), still

wholly new to its practice in the special part he had undertaken, would

rely on their indulgence to efforts aspiring to no other merit than that

of aiding the Hero of the Piece in a familiar illustration of those

qualities in which dogs might give a lesson to humanity. Again he bowed,

and retired behind the curtain. A pause of three minutes! the curtain

drew up. Could that be the same Mr. Chapman whom the spectators beheld

before them? Could three minutes suffice to change the sleek,

respectable, prosperous-looking gentleman who had just addressed them

into that image of threadbare poverty and hunger-pinched dejection?

Little aid from theatrical costume: the clothes seemed the same, only to

have grown wondrous aged and rusty. The face, the figure, the man,--

these had undergone a transmutation beyond the art of the mere stage

wardrobe, be it ever so amply stored, to effect. But for the patch over

the eye, you could not have recognized Mr. Chapman. There was, indeed,

about him, still, an air of dignity; but it was the dignity of woe,--

a dignity, too, not of an affable civilian, but of some veteran soldier.

You could not mistake. Though not in uniform, the melancholy man must

have been a warrior! The way the coat was buttoned across the chest, the

black stock tightened round the throat, the shoulders thrown back in the

disciplined habit of a life, though the head bent forward in the

despondency of an eventful crisis,--all spoke the decayed but not

ignoble hero of a hundred fields.

There was something foreign, too, about the veteran's air. Mr. Chapman

had looked so thoroughly English: that tragical and meagre personage

looked so unequivocally French.

Not a word had the Comedian yet said; and yet all this had the first

sight of him conveyed to the audience. There was an amazed murmur, then

breathless stillness; the story rapidly unfolded itself, partly by words,

much more by look and ac tion. There sat a soldier who had fought under

Napoleon at Marengo and Austerlitz, gone through the snows of Muscovy,

escaped the fires of Waterloo,--the soldier of the Empire! Wondrous

ideal of a wondrous time! and nowhere winning more respect and awe than

in that land of the old English foe, in which with slight knowledge of

the Beautiful in Art, there is so reverent a sympathy for all that is

grand in Man! There sat the soldier, penniless and friendless, there,

scarcely seen, reclined his grandchild, weak and slowly dying for the

want of food; and all that the soldier possesses wherewith to buy bread

for the day, is his cross of the Legion of Honour. It was given to him

by the hand of the Emperor: must he pawn or sell it? Out on the pomp of

decoration which we have substituted for the voice of passionate nature

on our fallen stage! Scenes so faithful to the shaft of a column,--

dresses by which an antiquary can define a date to a year! Is delusion

there? Is it thus we are snatched from Thebes to Athens? No; place a

really fine actor on a deal board, and for Thebes and Athens you may hang

up a blanket! Why, that very cross which the old soldier holds--away

from his sight--in that tremulous hand, is but patched up from the foil

and cardboard bought at the stationer's shop. You might see it was

nothing more, if you tried to see. Did a soul present think of such

minute investigation? Not one. In the actor's hand that trumpery became

at once the glorious thing by which Napoleon had planted the sentiment of

knightly heroism in the men whom Danton would have launched upon earth

ruthless and bestial, as galley-slaves that had burst their chain.

The badge, wrought from foil and cardboard, took life and soul: it begot

an interest, inspired a pathos, as much as if it had been made--oh! not

of gold and gems, but of flesh and blood. And the simple broken words

that the veteran addressed to it! The scenes, the fields, the hopes, the

glories it conjured up! And now to be wrenched away,--sold to supply

Man's humblest, meanest wants,--sold--the last symbol of such a past!

It was indeed "/propter vitam vivendi perdere causas/." He would have

starved rather,--but the child? And then the child rose up and came into

play. She would not suffer such a sacrifice,--she was not hungry,--she

was not weak; and when her voice failed her, she looked up into that iron

face and smiled,--nothing but a smile. Outcame the pocket-handkerchiefs!

The soldier seizes the cross, and turns away. It shall be sold! As he

opens the door, a dog enters gravely,--licks his hand, approaches the

table, raises itself on its hind legs, surveys the table dolefully,

shakes its head, whines, comes to its master, pulls him by the skirt,

looks into his face inquisitively.

What does all this mean? It soon comes out, and very naturally. The dog

belonged to an old fellow-soldier, who had gone to the Isle of France to

claim his share in the inheritance of a brother who had settled and died

there, and who, meanwhile, had confided it to the care of our veteran,

who was then in comparatively easy circumstances, since ruined by the

failure and fraud of a banker to whom he had intrusted his all; and his

small pension, including the yearly sum to which his cross entitled him,

had been forestalled and mortgaged to pay the petty debts which, relying

on his dividend from the banker, he had innocently incurred. The dog's

owner had been gone for months; his return might be daily expected.

Meanwhile the dog was at the hearth, but the wolf at the door. Now, this

sagacious animal had been taught to perform the duties of messenger and

major-domo. At stated intervals he applied to his master for sous, and

brought back the supplies which the sous purchased. He now, as usual,

came to the table for the accustomed coin--the last sou was gone,--the

dog's occupation was at an end. But could not the dog be sold?

Impossible: it was the property of another,--a sacred deposit; one would

be as bad as the fraudulent banker if one could apply to one's own

necessities the property one holds in trust. These little biographical

particulars came out in that sort of bitter and pathetic humour which a

study of Shakspeare, or the experience of actual life, had taught the

Comedian to be a natural relief to an intense sorrow. The dog meanwhile

aided the narrative by his by-play. Still intent upon the sous, he

thrust his nose into his master's pockets; he appealed touchingly to the

child, and finally put back his head and vented his emotion in a

lugubrious and elegiacal howl. Suddenly there is heard without the sound

of a showman's tin trumpet! Whether the actor had got some obliging

person to perform on that instrument, or whether, as more likely, it was

but a trick of ventriloquism, we leave to conjecture. At that note, an

idea seemed to seize the dog. He ran first to his master, who was on the

threshold about to depart; pulled him back into the centre of the room:

next he ran to the child, dragging her towards the same spot, though with

great tenderness, and then, uttering a joyous bark, he raised himself on

his hind legs and, with incomparable solemnity, performed a minuet step!

The child catches the idea from the dog. Was he not more worth seeing

than the puppet-show in the streets? might not people give money to see

him, and the old soldier still keep his cross? To-day there is a public

fete in the gardens yonder: that showman must be going thither; why not

go too? What! he the old soldier,--he stoop to show off a dog! he! he!

The dog looked at him deprecatingly and stretched himself on the floor--

lifeless.

Yes, that is the alternative--shall his child die too, and he be too

proud to save her? Ah! and if the cross can be saved also! But pshaw!

what did the dog know that people would care to see? Oh, much, much.

When the child was alone and sad, it would come and play with her. See

those old dominos! She ranged them on the floor, and the dog leaped up

and came to prove his skill. Artfully, then, the Comedian had planned

that the dog should make some sad mistakes, alternated by some marvellous

surprises. No, he would not do: yes, he would do. The audience took it

seriously, and became intensely interested in the dog's success; so sorry

for his blunders, so triumphant in his lucky hits. And then the child

calmed the hasty irritable old man so sweetly, and corrected the dog so

gently, and talked to the animal; told it how much they relied on it, and

produced her infant alphabet, and spelt out "Save us." The dog looked at

the letters meditatively, and henceforth it was evident that he took more

pains. Better and better; he will do, he will do! The child shall not

starve, the cross shall not be sold. Down drops the curtain.

End of Act I.

Act II. opens with a dialogue spoken off the stage. Invisible dramatis

persona, that subsist, with airy tongues, upon the mimetic art of the

Comedian. You understand that there is a vehement dispute going on. The

dog must not be admitted into a part of the gardens where a more refined

and exclusive section of the company have hired seats, in order to

contemplate, without sharing, the rude dances or jostling promenade of

the promiscuous merry-makers. Much hubbub, much humour; some persons for

the dog, some against him; privilege and decorum here, equality and

fraternity there. A Bonapartist colonel sees the cross on the soldier's

breast, and, /mille tonnerres/! he settles the point. He pays for three

reserved seats,--one for the soldier, one for the child, and a third for

the dog. The veteran enters,--the child, not strong enough to have

pushed through the crowd, raised on his shoulder, Rolla-like; the dog led

by a string. He enters erect and warrior-like; his spirit has been

roused by contest; his struggles have been crowned by victory. But (and

here the art of the drama and the actor culminated towards the highest

point)--but he now at once includes in the list of his dramatis persona

the whole of his Gatesboro' audience. They are that select company into

which he has thus forced his way. As he sees them seated before him, so

calm, orderly, and dignified, /mauvaise honte/ steals over the breast

more accustomed to front the cannon than the battery of ladies' eyes.

He places the child in a chair abashed and humbled; he drops into a seat

beside her shrinkingly; and the dog, with more self-possession and sense

of his own consequence, brushes with his paw some imaginary dust from a

third chair, as in the superciliousness of the well dressed, and then

seats himself, and looks round with serene audacity.

The chairs were skilfully placed on one side of the stage, as close as

possible to the front row of the audience. The soldier ventures a

furtive glance along the lines, and then speaks to his grandchild in

whispered, bated breath: "Now they are there, what are they come for?

To beg? He can never have the boldness to exhibit an animal for sous,--

impossible; no, no, let them slink back again and sell the cross." And

the child whispers courage; bids him look again along the rows; those

faces seem very kind. He again lifts his eyes, glances round, and with

an extemporaneous tact that completed the illusion to which the audience

were already gently lending themselves, made sundry complimentary

comments on the different faces actually before him, selected most

felicitously. The audience, taken by surprise, as some fair female, or

kindly burgess, familiar to their associations, was thus pointed out to

their applause, became heartily genial in their cheers and laughter.

And the Comedian's face, unmoved by such demonstrations,--so shy and

sad, insinuated its pathos underneath cheer and laugh. You now learned

through the child that a dance, on which the company had been supposed to

be gazing, was concluded, and that they would not be displeased by an

interval of some other diversion. Now was the tune! The dog, as if to

convey a sense of the prevalent ennui, yawned audibly, patted the child

on the shoulder, and looked up in her face. "A game of dominos,"

whispered the little girl. The dog gleefully grinned assent. Timidly

she stole forth the old dominos, and ranged them on the ground; on which

she slipped from her chair, the dog slipped from his; they began to play.

The experiment was launched; the soldier saw that the curiosity of the

company was excited, that the show would commence, the sons follow; and

as if he at least would not openly shame his service and his Emperor, he

turned aside, slid his hand to his breast, tore away his cross, and hid

it. Scarce a murmured word accompanied the action, the acting said all;

and a noble thrill ran through the audience. Oh, sublime art of the

mime!

The Mayor sat very near where the child and dog were at play. The

Comedian had (as he before implied he would do) discreetly prepared that

gentleman for direct and personal appeal. The little girl turned her

blue eyes innocently towards Mr. Hartopp, and said, "The dog beats me,

sir; will you try what you can do?"

A roar, and universal clapping of hands, amidst which the worthy

magistrate stepped on the stage. At the command of its young mistress

the dog made the magistrate a polite bow, and straight to the game went

magistrate and dog. From that time the interest became, as it were,

personal to all present. "Will you come, sir," said the child to a young

gentleman, who was straining his neck to see how the dominos were played,

"and observe that it is all fair? You, too, sir?" to Mr. Williams. The

Comedian stood beside the dog, whose movements he directed with

undetected skill, while appearing only to fix his eyes on the ground in

conscious abasement. Those on the rows from behind now pressed forward;

those in advance either came on the stage, or stood up intently

contemplating. The Mayor was defeated, the crowd became too thick, and

the caresses bestowed on the dog seemed to fatigue him. He rose and

retreated to a corner haughtily. "Manners, sir," said the soldier; "it

is not for the like of us to be proud; excuse him, ladies and gentlemen.

"He only wishes to please all," said the child, deprecatingly. "Say how

many would you have round us at a time, so that the rest may not be

prevented seeing you." She spread the multiplication figures before the

dog; the dog put his paw on 10. "Astonishing!" said the Mayor.

"Will you choose them yourself, sir?"

The dog nodded, walked leisurely round, keeping one eye towards the one

eye of his master and selected ten persons, amongst whom were the Mayor,

Mr. Williams, and three pretty young ladies who had been induced to

ascend the stage. The others were chosen no less judiciously.

The dog was then artfully led on from one accomplishment to another,

much within the ordinary range which bounds the instruction of learned

animals. He was asked to say how many ladies were on the stage: he spelt

three. What were their names? "The Graces." Then he was asked who was

the first magistrate in the town. The dog made a bow to the Mayor.

"What had made that gentleman first magistrate?" The dog looked to the

alphabet and spelt "Worth." "Were there any persons present more

powerful than the Mayor?" The dog bowed to the three young ladies.

"What made them more powerful?" The dog spelt "Beauty." When ended the

applause these answers received, the dog went through the musket exercise

with the soldier's staff; and as soon as he had performed that, he came

to the business part of the exhibition, seized the hat which his master

had dropped on the ground, and carried it round to each person on the

stage. They looked at one another. "He is a poor soldier's dog," said

the child, hiding her face. "No, no; a soldier cannot beg," cried the

Comedian. The Mayor dropped a coin in the hat; others did the same or

affected to do it. The dog took the hat to his master, who waved him

aside. There was a pause. The dog laid the hat softly at the soldier's

feet, and looked up at the child beseechingly. "What," asked she,

raising her head proudly--"what secures WORTH and defends BEAUTY?" The

dog took up the staff and shouldered it. "And to what can the soldier

look for aid when he starves and will not beg?" The dog seemed puzzled,

--the suspense was awful. "Good heavens," thought the Comedian, "if the

brute should break down after all!--and when I took such care that the

words should lie undisturbed-right before his nose!" With a deep sigh

the veteran started from his despondent attitude, and crept along the

floor as if for escape--so broken-down, so crestfallen. Every eye was on

that heartbroken face and receding figure; and the eye of that

heartbroken face was on the dog, and the foot of that receding figure

seemed to tremble, recoil, start, as it passed by the alphabetical

letters which still lay on the ground as last arranged. "Ah! to what

should he look for aid?" repeated the grandchild, clasping her little

hands. The dog had now caught the cue, and put his paw first upon

"WORTH," and then upon "BEAUTY."

"Worth!" cried the ladies--"Beauty!" exclaimed the Mayor. "Wonderful,

wonderful!"

"Take up the hat," said the child, and turning to the Mayor--"Ah! tell

him, sir, that what Worth and Beauty give to Valour in distress is not

alms but tribute."

The words were little better than a hack claptrap; but the sweet voice

glided through the assembly, and found its way into every heart.

"Is it so?" asked the old soldier, as his hand hoveringly passed above

the coins. "Upon my honour it is, sir!" said the Mayor, with serious

emphasis. The audience thought it the best speech he had ever made in

his life, and cheered him till the roof rang again. "Oh! bread, bread,

for you, darling!" cried the veteran, bowing his head over the child, and

taking out his cross and kissing it with passion; "and the badge of

honour still for me!"

While the audience was in the full depth of its emotion, and generous

tears in many an eye, Waife seized his moment, dropped the actor, and

stepped forth to the front as the man--simple, quiet, earnest man--artless

man!

"This is no mimic scene, ladies and gentlemen. It is a tale in real life

that stands out before you. I am here to appeal to those hearts that are

not vainly open to human sorrows. I plead for what I have represented.

True, that the man who needs your aid is not one of that soldiery which

devastated Europe. But he has fought in battles as severe, and been left

by fortune to as stern a desolation. True, he is not a Frenchman; he is

one of a land you will not love less than France,--it is your own. He,

too, has a child whom he would save from famine. He, too, has nothing

left to sell or to pawn for bread,--except--oh, not this gilded badge,

see, this is only foil and cardboard,--except, I say, the thing itself,

of which you respect even so poor a symbol,--nothing left to sell or to

pawn but Honour! For these I have pleaded this night as a showman; for

these, less haughty than the Frenchman, I stretch my hands towards you

without shame; for these I am a beggar."

He was silent. The dog quietly took up the hat and approached the Mayor

again. The Mayor extracted the half-crown he had previously deposited,

and dropped into the hat two golden sovereigns. Who does not guess the

rest? All crowded forward,--youth and age, man and woman. And most

ardent of all were those whose life stands most close to vicissitude,

most exposed to beggary, most sorely tried in the alternative between

bread and honour. Not an operative there but spared his mite.