Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/138

 I chiefly feel in my goings forth. The latest additions to these are a Skye terrier and two dachshunds. Perhaps, on second thoughts, I ought to feel thankful that all this length of material is only cut up into three dogs instead of making a dozen, as it easily might. Yes, on the whole, I think I will be thankful, and say nothing more about these just yet, although their caterpillar appearance offends my eye to the extent of outrage, and they cause me delay in the street, each dog being a procession in itself. Still they have not been here for long; no doubt they will find some new way of annoying me soon.

There is a raggy, nondescript sort of terrier about here which disturbs my nerves by futile attacks on cats. He is not a short-haired terrier, neither is he long-haired—his skin is not unanimous on the question. I believe he believe to somebody in the mews at the back; but he chiefly lives and pursues his occupation of cat-chasing in front of the terrace. I never saw him catch a cat yet, although I have more than once seen a cat catch him. He is usually either in full chase, or barking and yelping noisily at bay, while the cat spits and dabs. There is a singular unanimity about the cats he demonstrates against; they all choose my area railings as a stockade from behind which to breathe defiance, and reach for that terrier's eyes, what time he barks and yells agonisingly. Of course, I must suffer in particular; but that's part of the conspiracy.

A man a few doors off keeps a collie—a mad, untamed sort of thing, which has a constitutional antagonism to all motion on the part of his surroundings, living or dead. He has a conviction amounting to a sort of religious belief that his mission in this world is to arrest and punish in the full of its career anything whatever that moves with any rapidity. If a hansom passes he flies like a thunderbolt at the horse, missing which, he bites the wheel savagely. Similarly he hurls himself at a cart, a bicycle, a horse, a running cat, or a bit of paper in the wind; I have even seen him endeavour to devour a private omnibus. When Blenkinsop's chimney was on fire, and several fire-engines came, his fury was indescribable, so that I quite hoped he would be run over; but he wasn't. I begin to fear he