Page:Comic History of England.djvu/179

Rh jackass that flourished in 1460, prior to the conquest of the Fool-Killer, had the misfortune, while trying to wrest the throne from Henry, to get himself amputated at the second joint. He was brought home in two pieces, and ceased to draw a salary as a duke from that on. This cast a gloom over Richard, and inspired in his breast a strong desire to cut off the heads of a few casual acquaintances.

He was but eight years of age at this time, and was taken prisoner and sent to Utrecht, Holland. He was returned in good order the following year. His elder brother Edward having become king, under the title of Edward IV., Richard was then made Duke of Gloucester, Lord High Admiral, Knight of the Garter, and Earl of Balmoral.

It was at this time that he made the celebrated bon-mot relative to dogs as pets.

Having been out the evening before attending a watermelon recital in the country, and having contributed a portion of his clothing to a barbed-wire fence and the balance to an open-faced Waterbury bull-dog, some one asked him what he thought of the dog as a pet.

Richard drew himself up to his full height, and said that, as a rule, he favored the dog as a pet, but that the man who got too intimate with the common low-browed bull-dog of the fifteenth