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“Your master a dyer,” cried Pepper, “then you, too, shall die. Can you fight? I’m full of it. Come, we must have it out.”
“Come back, Pepper, come back, sir!” cried his mistress. But for once Pepper disobeyed; he flew at that funny dog, and in a few minutes the air was filled with the blue and magenta fluff, that the Skye tore out of his antagonist. The combat ended in a complete victory for Pepper. He routed his assailant, and finally chased him off the esplanade.
Pepper’s life at the seaside was a very happy one, or would have been except for the dyed dog, that he made a point of giving instant chase to, whenever he saw him.
Pepper next turned up in Wales. Sir B. N – had taken a lovely old mansion between C – n and Ll – o, far removed from any other houses, and quite amongst the hills, and after seeing his wife and sister settled in the new abode, he went off to Scotland. A week after his departure, the two ladies got up a small picnic to Dolbadran Castle, whose ruins stand upon a steep rock overhanging the lake. Pepper of course accompanied the tourists, and the whole party returned at night rather fatigued. Mrs C – went to bed, and soon fell into a sound sleep, from which she was aroused by Pepper; he was barking at the bedside. She got up, gave him some water, and returned to bed, but Pepper continued to bark and run about the room in a very strange way; he seized the bedclothes, and pulled at them violently. So she put him outside the door in a long passage, which was closed at the other end by a thick green-baize covered door.
Poor Mrs C – was fated to have no rest. Pepper barked louder than ever, he tore at the door, and scratched as if he wished to pull it down; so his mistress again left her couch, and taking up a small riding-whip, proceeded to administer what she thought to be well-merited correction.
Pepper did not appear to care for the whip at all; he only barked the louder, and jumped up wilder; he even caught Mrs C – ’s nightdress in his mouth, and attempted to drag her on towards the end of the passage.
You must be going mad, she thought. I’ll put you out of the house, for you will alarm the whole establishment; and thus thinking, she returned, followed by Pepper, who continued to clutch at her garments, into her room, put on her dressing-gown, and proceeded to carry her intention into effect.
Directly she opened the door at the end of the passage, she saw a bright light streaming from a sort of ante-room at the top of the staircase, on the opposite side of the corridor, and at the same moment became sensible of a strange smell of burning wood.
She flew across, and was nearly blinded by the smoke that burst forth immediately the ante-room door was opened. The whole house was on fire, and it was with considerable difficulty that Mrs C – , Lady N – , and the domestics, escaped from the burning mass.
Had Mrs C – been five minutes later before discovering the flames all must have perished; for there was a great quantity of wood-work in the house, and it burnt rapidly.
It matters little how the fire in this case originated, the fact remains that this Skye-terrier, Pepper, was the first to discover it, and his wonderful sagacity and determination, combined to save his friends from a fearful death.
“Ida,” said Frank, refilling his pipe, “you are beginning to wink.”
“It is time you were in bed, Ida,” said my wife.
“Oh! but I do want to hear you read what you wrote yesterday about the poor blind fiddler’s dog,” cried Ida.
“Well, then,” I said, “we will bring the little dog on the boards, and make him speak a piece himself, and this will be positively the last story or anecdote to-night.”
The Blind Fiddler’s Dog
The blind man’s dog commences in doggerel verse: —
“It really is amusing to hear how some dogs brag,
And walk about and swagger, with tails and ears a-wag, —
How they boast about their prizes and the shows they have been at,
And their coats so crisp and curly, or bodies sleek and fat,
Crying, There’s no mistake about it, for judges all agree,
We’re the champion dogs of England, by points and pedigree.”
Heigho! I wonder what I am, then. Let me consider, I am a poor blind fiddler’s dog, to begin with; but of course that is only a trade. I asked “Bit-o’-Fun” the other day what breed I was. Bit-o’-Fun, I should tell you, is a champion greyhound, and not at all an unkind dog, only just a little haughty and proud, as becomes her exalted station in life. She was talking about the large number of prizes she had won for her master at the various shows she had been at.
“What breed do you think I am?” I asked her. Bit-o’-Fun laughed.
“Well, little Fiddler,” she replied, looking down at me with one eye, “I should say you were what we gentry call a mongrel.”
“Is that something very nice?” I inquired. “Do I come of a high family, now?”
Bit-o’-Fun laughed now till the tears came into her eyes.
“Family!” she cried. “Yes, Fiddler, you have a deal of family in your blood – all families, in fact. You are partly Skye and partly bulldog, and partly collie and partly pug.”
“Oh, stop!” I cried; “you will make me too proud.”
But Bit-o’-Fun went on —
“Your head, Fiddler, is decidedly Scotch; your legs are Irish – awfully Irish; you are tulip-eared, ring-tailed, and your feather – ”
“My feather!” I cried, looking round at my back. “You never mean to say I have got feathers.”
“Your hair, then, goosie; feather is the technical term. Your feather is flat, decidedly flat. And, in fact, you’re a most wonderful specimen altogether. That’s your breed.”
I never felt so proud in all my life before.
“And you’re a great beauty, Bit-o’-Fun,” I said; “but aren’t your legs rather long for your body?”
“Oh, no!” replied Bit-o’-Fun; “there isn’t a morsel too much daylight under me.”
“And wouldn’t you like to have a nice long coat like mine?”
“Well, no,” said Bit-o’-Fun – “that is, yes, you know; but it wouldn’t suit so well in running, you see. Look at my head, how it is formed to cleave the wind. Look at my tail, again; that is what I steer with.”
“Oh! you’re perfection itself, I know,” said I. “Pray how many prizes have you taken?”
“Well,” answered the greyhound, “I’ve had over fifty pound-pieces of beef-steak and from twenty to thirty half-pound.”
“Do they give you beef-steak for prizes, then?” I asked.
“Oh dear no,” replied she; “but it’s like this: whenever I take a first prize my master gives me a one-pound piece of steak; if it’s only a second prize I only get half a pound, and I always get a kiss besides.”
“But supposing,” I asked, “you took no prize?”
“A thing which never happened,” said Bit-o’-Fun, rather proudly.
“But supposing?” I insisted.
“Oh, well,” she answered, “instead of being kissed and steaked, I should be kicked and Spratt-caked, or sent to bed without my supper.”
“And do you enjoy yourself at a show?” said I.
“Well, yes,” said the greyhound; “all doggies don’t, though, but I do. And master gives me such jolly food beforehand, and grooms me every morning, and washes me – but that isn’t nice, makes one shiver so – and then I have always such a nice bed to lie upon. Then I’m sent to the show town in a beautiful box, and men meet me at the station with a carriage. These men are sometimes very rough though, and talk angrily, and carry big whips, and smell horribly of bad beer and, worse, tobacco. One struck me once over the head. Now, if I had been doing anything I wouldn’t have minded; but I wasn’t: only I served him out.”
“What did you do?” said I.
“Why, just waited till I got a chance, then bit him through the leg. My master just came up at the same moment, or it might have been a dear bite to me.”
“And what is a dog-show like?” I asked.
“Oh!” said Bit-o’-Fun, “when you enter the show-hall, there you see hundreds and hundreds of doggies all chained up on benches. And the noise they make, those that are new to it, is something awful. At first I used to suffer dreadfully with headaches, but I’m used to it now. But it is great fun to see and converse with so many pretty and intelligent dogs, I can tell you. It is this conversation that makes all the row, for perhaps you want to talk with a doggie quite at the other end of the hall, and so you have to roar until you are hoarse. What do we speak about? Well, about our masters, and our points, and our food and exploits, and we abuse the judges, and wonder whether all the funny people we see have souls the same as we have, and so on. I have often thought what fun it would be if one of us were to break his chain some night, and let all the other doggies loose. Oh, wouldn’t we have a ball just!
“Well, we are taken out in batches to be judged, and are led round and round in a ring, while two or three ugly men, with hooks in their hands and ribbons in their buttonholes, shake their heads and examine us. That is the time I look my proudest. I cock my ears, straighten my tail, walk like a princess, and bow like a duchess, for I know that the eyes of all the world are on me, and, more than that, my master’s eyes. And then when they hang the beautiful ticket around my neck, oh, ain’t I glad just! But still I can’t help feeling for the poor doggies who don’t get any prize, they look so woe-begone and downhearted.
“But managers might do lots to make us more comfortable, by feeding us more regularly, and giving us better food and more water. Oh, I’ve often had my tongue hanging out, and feeling like a bit of sand-paper for want of a draught of pure water at a country show. And I’ve been at shows where they never gave us food, and no shelter from the scorching sun or the thunder-shower. Again, they ought to lead us all out occasionally, if only for five minutes, just to stretch our poor cramped legs. But they don’t, and it is very cruel. Sometimes, too, the people tease us. I don’t mind a pretty child patting me on the head, nor I don’t object to a sweet young lady bending over me and letting her long silky curls fall over my shoulder; but there are gawky young men, who come round and prod us with their sticks; and silly old ladies, who prick us with their parasols, and say, ‘Get up, sir, and show yourself.’ You’ve heard of my friend ‘Tell,’ the champion Saint Bernard, I dare say. No? Oh, I forgot; of course you wouldn’t. But, at any rate, one day a fat, podgy lady, vulgarly bedecked in satin and gold, goes up to Tell and points her splendid white parasol right at his chest. ‘Get up,’ says she, ‘and show yourself.’ Now Tell hasn’t the best of tempers at any time. So he did get up, and quickly, too, and showed his teeth and bit; and if his chain hadn’t been as short as his temper it would have been a sad thing for Mrs Podgy. As it was, he collared the parasol, and proceeded at once to turn it into toothpicks and rags, and what is more, too, he kept the pieces. So you see the life even of a show-dog has its drawbacks.”
“How exceedingly interesting!” said I; “wouldn’t I like to be a champion! Do you think now, Bit-o’-Fun, I would have any chance?”
“Well, you see,” said Bit-o’-Fun, smiling in her pleasant way, “there isn’t a class at present for Castle Hill collies.”
“What?” said I. “I thought you said a while ago I was a high-bred mongrel?”
“Yes, yes,” said Bit-o’-Fun; “mongrel, or Castle Hill collie; it’s all the same, you know.”
“You’re very learned, Bit-o’-Fun,” I continued. “Now tell me this, what do they mean by judging by points?”
“Well, you see,” replied Bit-o’-Fun, with a comical twinkle in her eye, “the judge goes round, and he says, ‘We’ll give this dog ten points for his head,’ and sticks in ten pins; and so many for his tail, and sticks in so many pins in his tail, and his coat and legs, and so on, and does the same with the other dogs, and the dog who has most pins in him wins the prize. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I replied; “you put it as plain as a book. But it is queer, and I wouldn’t like the pins; I’m sure I should bite.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared “Bill,” the butcher’s bull-and-terrier. I knew it was he before I looked round, for he is a nasty vulgar thing, and sometimes he bites me. “Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed again. “Good-morning, Bit-o’-Fun. Whatever have you been telling that little fool of a Fiddler?”
They always call me Fiddler, after my dear master.
“About the shows,” said Bit-o’-Fun.
“Why, you never mean to tell me, Fiddler, that you think of going to a show! Ha! ha! ha!”
“And suppose I did,” I replied, a little riled, and I felt my hair beginning to stand up all along my back, “I dare say I would have as much chance as an ugly patch-eyed thing like you.”
“Look here, Fiddler,” said Bill, showing all his teeth – and he has an awful lot of them – “talk a little more respectfully when you address your betters. I’ve a very good mind to – ”
“To what, Master Bill?” said “Don Pedro,” a beautiful large white-and-black Newfoundland, coming suddenly on the ground.
“No one is talking to you, Don,” said Bill.
“But I’m talking to you, Bill,” said Don Pedro; “and if I hear you say you’ll dare to touch poor little Fiddler, I’ll carry you off and drown you in the nearest pond, that’s all.”
Bill ran off with his tail between his feet before Don Pedro had done speaking. Now isn’t Don Pedro a dear, good fellow?
“Well, I’m not a champion dog, you see, though I modestly advance;
I might have taken a prize or two if I’d ever had a chance;
But shows, I fear, were never meant for the like of poor me, —
Besides, my master isn’t rich, and couldn’t pay the fee;
Yet I love my master none the less, and serve him faithfully.
“Poor master’s got no eyes, you know, and I lead him through the street;
And he plays upon the fiddle, and oh! he plays so sweet.
That I wonder and I ponder, while my eyes with salt tears glisten.
How so many people pass him by, and never stop to listen:
How that nasty big blue man, with his nasty big blue coat.
Moves master on so roughly that I long to bite his throat!
“There are certain quiet side-streets where master oft I take,
Where he’s sure to get a penny, and I a bit of cake;
But at times the nights are rainy, and seem so very long,
That I envy pets in carriages, though I know that that is wrong;
And master’s growing very old, and his blood is getting thin,
And he often shivers with the cold before I lead him in.
“Poor master loves me very much, and I love master too;
But if anything came over me, whatever could he do?
I think of things like these, you know, when in my bed at night,
Even in my dreams those nasty thoughts oft make me cry with fright!
Yet, though my lot seems very hard, and my pleasures are but few
I do not grieve, for well I know a dog’s life soon wears through;
And I’ve been told by some there are better worlds than this,
That, even for little doggies, there’s a future state of bliss:
That faithfulness and love are things that cannot die,
And sorrow here means joy there—
in the realms beyond the sky.”
Chapter Twenty Four.
Mr and Mrs Polypus: A Story Founded on a Fact in Natural History
“Our plenteous streams a varied race supply.”
Pope.
“Creatures that by a rule of Nature teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.”
Shakespeare.
Scene: The old pine forest; a beautiful day in later summer. Grey clouds flitting across the sky’s bright blue, and occasionally obscuring the sun’s rays. A gentle breeze going whispering through the woods, the giant elms, the lordly oaks, and the dark and gloomy firs bending and bowing as the wind passes among their branches. Patches of bright crimson here and there where the foxgloves still bloom; patches of purple and yellow where heather and furze are growing. Not a sound to be heard in all the wood, except the clear, joyous notes of the robin; all his young ones are safely hatched and fledged, and flown away, and he is singing a hymn of thanksgiving.
Aileen Aroon lying as usual with her great head on my lap, Theodore Nero as usual tumbling on the grass, Ida close at my side peeping over my shoulder at the paper I am reading aloud to her.
Ida (speaks): “What mites of people your hero and heroine are!”
The author: “Yes, puss; didn’t you order me to write you a tale with tiny, tiny, tiny people in it? Well, here they are. They are microscopic.”
Ida: “But of course it is not a true story; it is composed, as you call it.”
The author: “It is a romance, Ida; but it is a romance of natural history, because, you know, there are creatures called polyps that live in the sea, and are so small you have to get a microscope to watch their motions, and they often eat each other, or swallow each other alive, and do all sorts of strange things; and so I call my story —
“Mr and Mrs Polypus: A Tale of the Coralline Sea, a tale of the Indian Ocean, a romance of the coralline sea.
“Far down beneath the blue waves lived my hero and heroine all alone together in their crystal home, with its floors of coral and its windows of diamonds. The cottage in which they dwelt was of a very strange shape indeed, being nothing like any building ever you saw on the face of the earth – but it suited them well – and all around it was a beautiful garden of living plants. Well, all plants possess life; but these were, in reality, living animals, living beings, shaped like flowers, but as capable of eating and drinking as you or I am, only they were all on stalks, and could only catch their food as it floated past them. This seems somewhat awkward, but then they were used to it, and custom is everything. I don’t believe these animals growing on stalks ever wished to walk any oftener than human beings wished to fly.
“Mr and Mrs Polypus, as you may easily guess, were husband and wife, but for all that I am very sorry to have to tell you that they did not always live very peaceably together. They used to have little disagreements now and then; for they were only polyps, you must remember, and smaller far than water-babies. Their little quarrels were always about their food, for, if the truth must be told, Mr Polypus was somewhat of a tyrant to his tiny wife.
“Mr Polypus had many faults; he was, among other things, a very great glutton; so much so, that he did not mind his wife starving so long as he himself had enough to eat.
“Now a word or two about the personal appearance of my principal characters. They were indeed a funny-looking couple, and so small, that unless you had had good eyes, and a tolerably good microscope as well, it would have been impossible for you to see much of what they were doing at all. They were both the same shape, and had only one leg a-piece – a comparatively thick one though – so that when they walked about it was hop, hop, hop on one end, and very ridiculous it looked. But then, if they had only one leg each, Nature had made it up to them in the matter of arms; for instead of two only, as you have, they had a whole row of them all round their shoulders. Wonderfully movable arms they were too, and seemed all joints together, and neither he nor his wife could keep from whirling their arms about whenever they were excited. They had, in fact, so many arms that they could afford to place two pair akimbo, fold one or two pairs across the chest, and still have a few left to shake in each other’s faces when scolding; not that she did much of that, for she was very mild and obedient.
“The only food that Mr and Mrs Polypus got was little fishes, which came floating in through the window to them, or down the chimney, or in by the door; so that they never required to go to the market to buy any provisions; they only had to wait comfortably at their own fireside until breakfast or dinner swam in to them of its own accord. But this did not satisfy the craving appetite of Mr Polypus; so he used often to be from home, swimming up and down the streets, or hopping about at the bottom of the village of Coral Town, where fish did most abound; and it was only when he was away from home on a fishing expedition that poor pretty Mrs Polypus used to get anything to eat, for she was a quiet little woman, and always stopped at home. Poor thing, the neighbours were often very sorry for her; for hers had been a very sad story. For all she was so quiet now, she was once the gayest of the gay, the life and soul of the village of Coral Town. At every ball or party that was given, Peggy – for so she was then called – was the star; and whenever Peggy countenanced a picnic or an angling match, all the village went too and took his wife with him.
“When Peggy was still in her teens she fell in love with gay, rollicking young Mr Pompey, the potassium merchant. You know it was all potassium that they burned in Coral Town, because that burns under water, and coals won’t; and instead of the streets and houses being lighted with gas or oil at nights, they were illuminated with phosphorus. For the next six months after Pompey met pretty Peggy at a ball, their young lives were but as one happy dream; for Pompey loved Peggy dearly, and Peggy loved Pompey. Away down at the bottom of Coral Town was a beautiful submarine garden, with fresh-water shrubs of every shade and flowers of every hue, and there were lonely caves and grottoes and groves, and all kinds of lovely scenery imaginable; and here the lovers often met, and along the winding pathways they ofttimes hopped together. ’Twas here Pompey first declared his passion, and first beheld the love-light in his Peggy’s beaming eyes. One evening they were seated side by side in a coral cave. Everything around them was peaceful and still, the water clear and pellucid, and unbroken by a single ripple. They had sat thus for hours; for the time had flown very quickly, and Pompey had been reading a delightful book to Peggy, until it got so dark he couldn’t see. Far up above them were the phosphorescent lights in the village twinkling like stars in heaven’s firmament. The cave in which they sat was lighted up by a large diamond, which sparkled in the roof, and diffused a soft rose light all around, while here and there on the floor lay strange-shaped musical shells, which ever and anon gave forth sounds like Aeolian harps.
“‘Ah!’ sighed Pompey, and —
“‘Ah!’ sighed Peggy, and —
“‘When shall we wed?’ said Pompey, and —
“‘Whenever you please,’ said she.
“‘Oh! oh!’ cried a terrible voice at their elbows, ‘there’ll be two words to that bargain. He! he! There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip. Ha! ha!’
“And behold! there in the mouth of the cave stood an ugly old male polyp grinning and bobbing at them like some dreadful ogre.
“‘How dare you, sir!’ said Potassium Pompey, springing from his seat, and striding with a couple of hops towards the new-comer – ‘how dare you intrude yourself on the privacy of affianced lovers?’
“‘Intrude? Ho! ho! Privacy? He! he! Affianced? Ha! ha!’ replied the old polyp. ‘I’ll soon let you know that, young jackanapes.’
“‘Sir,’ cried Pompey, ‘this insolence shall not go unpunished. Unhand me, Peggy.’
“‘Oh! hush, hush, pray hush,’ cried poor Peggy, wringing a few of her hands; ‘it’s my father, Pompey, my poor father.’
“‘That fright your father?’ replied Pompey; ‘but there, for your sake, my Peggy, and for the sake of his grey hairs, I will spare him.’
“‘Come along, Miss Malapert; adieu, Mr Jackanapes,’ cried the enraged father; and he dragged his daughter from the cave, but not before she had time to cast one tearful look of fond farewell on her lover, not before she had time to extend ten hands to him behind her back, and he had fondly pressed them all.
“Peggy’s father was a miserly old polyp, who lived in a superb residence in the most fashionable part of Coral Town. He had servants who went or came at his beck or call, a splendid chariot of pure gold to ride in, with pure-bred fish-horses, and the only thing he ever had to annoy him was that when he awoke in the morning he could not think of any new pleasure for the day that had dawned. Every day he had a lovely little polyp boy killed for his dinner – for polyps are all cannibals – and if that meal didn’t please him, then he used to eat one of the flunkeys. But for all his riches, he was not a gentleman. He had made all his money as a marine store dealer, and then retired to live at his mansion, with his only daughter Peggy.
“Now, for the next many days poor Potassium Pompey was a very unhappy polyp indeed. He went about his business very listlessly, neglected to eat, grew awfully thin, and let his beard grow, and people even said that he sometimes sold them bad potassium. As for Peggy, she was locked up in a room all by herself, and never saw any one at all, except her father, who five times a day came regularly to feed her, and when she refused to eat he cruelly crammed it down her throat. He was only a polyp, remember.
“‘I’ll fatten the gipsy,’ he said to himself, ‘and then marry her to my old friend Peterie. He can support a wife, for I always see him fishing, and he can’t possibly eat all he catches himself.’
“So it was all arranged that the wedding should come off, and one day, as Pompey was returning disconsolately from his office, he met a great and noisy crowd, who were huzzaing and waving their arms in the water, and shouting, ‘Long live the happy, happy pair!’ And presently up drove the old miser’s chariot, with six fish-horses, and polyp postillions to match; and seated there beside his detested rival, Pompey caught a glimpse of his loved and lost darling Peggy; thereupon Pompey made up his mind to drown himself right off. So he went and sought out the blackest, deepest pool, and plunged in. But polyps are so used to the water that they cannot drown, and so the more Pompey tried to drown himself, the more the water wouldn’t drown him; so at last he wiped his eyes, and —
“‘What a fool I am,’ said he, ‘to attempt death for the sake of one fair lady, when there are hundreds of polyps as beautiful as she in Coral Town. I’ll go home and work, and make riches, then I’ll marry ten wives, and hold them all in my arms at once.’
“But Pompey couldn’t forget his early love as quickly as he wished to, and often of an evening, when he knew that Mr Polypus was away at some of his gluttonous carousals, Pompey would steal to the window of her house and keek in through the chinks of the shutters, and sigh to see his beloved Peggy sitting all so lonely by herself at the little table, on which the phosphorus lamp was burning. And at the same time – although Pompey did not know it – Peggy would be gazing so sadly into the potassium fire, and thinking of him; she really could not help it, although she knew it was wrong, and poor pretty Mrs Polypus couldn’t be expected to be very cheery, could she?
“Well, one night she was sitting all alone like that, wondering what was keeping her husband so long, and if he would beat her, as usual, when he did come home. She hadn’t had a bit to eat for many, many hours, and was just beginning to feel hungry and faint, when a tiny wee fish swam in by the chimney, and pop! Mrs Polypus had it down her throat in a twinkling; but as ill-luck would have it, who should return at the very moment but her wicked husband. He had evidently been eating even more than usual, and looked both flushed and angry.
“‘Now, Mrs Polypus,’ he began, ‘I saw that. How dared you, when you knew I was coming home to supper, and there wasn’t a morsel in the larder?’
“‘Oh! please, Peterie,’ said poor little Mrs Polypus, beginning to cry, ‘I really didn’t mean to; but I was so hungry, and – ’
“‘Hungry?’ roared the husband; ‘how dared you to be hungry? – how dared you be anything at all, in fact? But there, I shall not irritate myself by talking to you. Bring it back again.’
“‘Oh! if you please, Peterie – ’ cried Mrs Polypus.
“‘Bring it back again, I say,’ cried Mr Polypus, making all his arms swing round and round like a wheel, till you could hardly have seen one of them, and finally crossing them on his chest; and, leaning on the back of the chair, he looked sternly down on his spouse, and said – ‘Disgorge at once!’
“‘I won’t, then, and, what is more, I shan’t; there!’ said the wee woman, for even a woman as well as a worm will turn when very much trodden upon.
“‘Good gracious me!’ cried Mr Polypus, fairly aghast with astonishment; ‘does – she – actually – dare – to – defy me?’ but ‘Ho! ho!’ he added, likewise ‘He! he!’ and ‘we’ll see;’ and he strode to the window and bolted it, and strode to the door and bolted that; then he took the phosphorus lamp and extinguished it.
“‘It’ll be so dark, Peterie,’ said his wife, beginning to be frightened.
“‘There is light enough for what I have to do,’ said Peterie, sternly. Then he opened a great yawning mouth, and he seized her first by one arm, and then by another, until he had the whole within his grasp, and she all the time kicking with her one leg, and screaming —
“‘Oh! please don’t, Peterie. Oh! Peterie, don’t.’
“But he heeded not her cries, which every moment became weaker and more far-away like, until they ceased entirely, and the unhappy Mrs Polypus was nowhere to be seen. Her husband had swallowed her alive!
“As soon as he had done so he sat down by the fire, looking rather swollen, and feeling big and not altogether comfortable; but how could he expect to be, after swallowing his wife? He leaned his head on three arms and gazed pensively into the fire.
“‘After all,’ he said to himself, ‘I may have been just a little too hasty, for she wasn’t at all a bad little woman, taking her all-in-all. Heigho! I fear I’ll never see her like again.’
“Hark! a loud knocking at the door. He starts and listens, and trembles like the guilty thing he is. The knocking was repeated in one continuous stream of rat-tats.
“‘Hullo! Peterie,’ cried a voice; ‘open the door.’
“‘Who is there?’ asked Peterie at last.
“‘Why, man, it is I – Potassium Pompey. Whatever is up with you to-day that you are barred and bolted like this? Afraid of thieves? Eh?’
“‘No,’ said Peterie, undoing the fastenings and letting Pompey come in; ‘it isn’t that exactly. The fact is, I wasn’t feeling very well, and just thought I would lie down for a little while.’
“‘You don’t look very ill, anyhow,’ said Pompey; ‘and you are actually getting stouter, I think!’
