VIII.

NUISANCES.

IRST of all comes the Dog. I hate dogs: always did and always shall. At ætat. .

five, one took a mouthful out of my left leg; at ten and a half, when I was declaring my passion to little Lotti Lamb, and was just going to close my ardent protestations in a manner that I think would not have been objectionable to Lotti, her little spaniel put his cold nose (Lotti and I were sitting on the couch, and ‘Beauty'— the beast!—was perched on his haunches at the end) right against my cheek and frightened me to that extent that I suddenly threw myself upon the neck of my princess and cried to her for protection. Lotti laughed and called me coward. I, as became a youth of spirit, waxed indignant, took Beauty by the 'scruff' of his neck, and pitched him into the passage. Lotti began to

weep and refused to be comforted. Nay, when I tried to snatch her hand, she turned her back upon me, picked up Beauty, hugged and kissed him in the most dogged manner, as if to spite me, and finally went up stairs and brought down the packet of 'drops' I had given her in the morning. These she delivered me with a stiff curtsy, and when I took them-'drops' of another sort standing all the while in my eyes, for really I loved Lotti very much-thrust them in my trousers pocket, and bade her a somewhat husky good-bye, she never so much as winced, but shook her wreath of yellow curls from off her face in the haughtiest manner and went on kissing Beauty as aforesaid. I heard her murmuring words of sympathy to the whelp as I left the house; and those were the last words I ever heard from Lotti. She is married, I understand, at this date, and has pets to fondle far more precious than that brute of the lopping ears and frigid nose.

But all this is by the way. My plaint against dogs is based rather on social than personal grounds. Every dog in London is a public nuisI lay this down dogmatically. Every man who would keep a dog in London is unfit to live in a civilized community. Let me put a case. My

ance.

next-door neighbour has a dog—a long-legged, thin-bellied, sharp-nosed, hungry-looking greyhound. Well, half through the day and all through the night this dog does nothing but howl. His howl, too, is like himself-long, and thin, and sharp, and hungry. The frightful visions it causes me to have are defiant of description. Only last night I dreamt I was rolled up on a skewer, and held by a giant's hand-in front of the hound's kennel. I thought the beast tugged at its chain and whined piteously to snap at me. I thought I struggled with all my might to shift myself as far to the back of the skewer as possible; but just in proportion as I retired, the chain of the dog stretched—nay the dog himself stretched, like the poodle in Faust-and at length when I could move off no farther, I felt his cold nose touch my cheek. I knew the sensation; and, in a moment, a change came o'er the spirit of my dream. Lotti was standing by the kennel with one little roseblush hand doubled threateningly at me, while with the other she pelted me with acid-drops. I felt the sweetmeats patter upon my brow, and I awoke. The rain was beating against my bedroom window and the dog was howling, in his usual minor key, in the next yard.

Now, why should my neighbour keep a brute to afflict me in a manner which, as Dog-berry says, is tolerable and not to be endured? When I complain to him of the nuisance, he flatly tells me I must be mistaken-that he is quite sure his dog never makes a noise. Of course not. Did you ever know a man admit his cur howled, any more than you ever knew a mother admit her child cried? I never did. 'Besides,' says the owner of the hound, 'it's a protection to the house.' Now, inasmuch as that dog (there being no discernible difference, so far as I know, between the footstep of a burglar and a bishop) conceives it to be his duty to howl and bark at every footstep which passes-I should like to know how it can be regarded as a protection? If Bill Sykes were peeling the lead off the top of the house, the dog couldn't put himself in a greater way than he does every time I pass. Perhaps he takes me for a thief. I hope he does. Indeed, if I were sure of the fact, instead of administering strychnine to him in homoeopathic doses as I am doing now, I should do for him at once! By the way, I have heard that when a dog howls, it means death: in the present case it does-TO THE DOG!

After the dogs come the Cats. The catalogue

in our neighbourhood is beyond computation. There is one venerable Tom who has had his tail abbreviated and his ears clipped like a bull-dog; there is a sleek-coated young hussy of a tabby in love with the Tom; there are a couple of young swells with brass collars and black spots at the side of their noses like those rabbits which are called double-smuts, trying to draw off Tabby's affections; and there is a white-coated young creature, of French parentage and easy morals, hankering after the swells. The disturbance nightly created by these cats-all, like human beings, playing at cross-purposes in their lovesis something awful. They make a point of meeting at about twelve, and generally break up at half-past two or three. During that time sleep is banished from the district. The whole affair is like an Irish wedding-much purring, more swearing, and most fighting. The number of boots I have thrown away in trying to scatter the fiends

in endeavouring to put a stop to their catacoustics-would, if stated, appear incredible. Books and bootjacks, vases and toilet bottles, have gone by the dozen; and of three sets of fire-irons, which at different periods have been purchased for my chamber, only a single poker remains.

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