Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/140

 It's part of the conspiracy. Now I ask, for whose benefit do the ponds of Highgate exist? For that of the British public. And am I not one of the British public? Of course I am. Then, I ask, sir, what about Magna Charta? What about my trousers? Are they a carpet, sir, or a flower bed, or a gravestone, that they should be drenched with the muddy tears of Highgate Ponds? Are my coat-tails the coat-tails of a free-born Englishman or not? Very well, then, sir

Now there goes a dog which is a nuisance and terror to the whole neighbourhood. If he were an equal nuisance all round I wouldn't mind; I might extract satisfaction from the annoyance of the neighbours. But he isn't. Of course, it is invariably my doorstep upon which he sits to scratch himself, my housemaid or my visitors whom he snaps at when they attempt to pass, my area whence he steals food while the cook talks to the butcher, and my area in which he turns at bay when chased by indignant but dirty boys. He is a good-sized black dog, and attempts to pass himself off as a retriever on the strength of some very distant connection with the retriever family on the part of a remote ancestor. He gets his living chiefly by stealing, but largely by deluding boys. He possesses them with the idea that he is a retriever, and a useful acquisition on a sporting expedition—when they buy an old pistol for half-a-crown, for instance, and go out to shoot larks. He sponges on those boys and steals their lunch. He gets them into all sorts of scrapes, and finally turns and rends their trousers; for ever after which those boys pursue him with execrations and brickbats. I should not object to this, if none of the brickbats came into my area and broke my windows, but they do. He tells other boys that he can swim, and they form a small party to witness his performance. He can't and won't swim, but he kills a fowl or steals something off a butcher's bench, and the boys have to cut and run. This sort of thing has gone on until almost every boy has found him out, and his enemies consequently are many. Every boy's hand, boot, stick, or tin kettle is against him, and every boy's corduroys are familiar in his mouth