alk in the district, and is, indeed, still
talked about, for "the man with the dogs" returned there, and is more
celebrated than ever under his nickname, but his celebrity is not of a
bad kind, for he is now just as much respected and liked as he was
despised and hated formerly. He is still, as a matter of fact, "the man
with the dogs," as he is rightly called, for he has not his equal as a
dog-breaker for leagues around, but now he no longer breaks in mastiffs,
as he has given up teaching honest dogs to "act the part of Judas," as
he says, for those dirty custom-house officers, and now he only devotes
himself to dogs to be used for smuggling, and he is worth listening to
when he says:

"You may depend upon it, that I know how to punish such commodities as
she was, where they have sinned!"

THE CLOWN

The hawkers' cottage stood at the end of the Esplanade, on the little
promontory where the jetty is, where all the winds, all the rain, and
all the spray met. The hut, both walls and roof, was built of old
planks, more or less covered with tar, whose chinks were stopped with
oakum, and dry wreckage was heaped up against it. In the middle of the
room an iron pot stood on two bricks, and served as a stove, when they
had any coal, but as there was no chimney, it filled the room, which was
ventilated only by a low door, with smoke, and there the whole crew
lived, eighteen men and one woman. Some had undergone various terms of
imprisonment, and nobody knew what the others were, but though they were
all, more or less, suffering from some physical defect and were nearly
old men, they were still all strong enough for hauling. For the "Chamber
of Commerce" tolerated them there, and allowed them that hovel to live
in, on condition that they should be ready to haul, by day and by night.

For every vessel they hauled, each got a penny by day and two-pence by
night, but that was not certain, on account of the competition of
retired sailors, fishermen's wives, laborers who had nothing to do, but
who were all stronger than those half-starved wretches in the hut.

And yet they lived there, those eighteen men and one woman. Were they
happy? Certainly not. Hopeless? Not that, either; for they occasionally
got a little besides their scanty pay, and then they stole occasionally,
fish, lumps of coal, things without any value to those who lost them,
but of great value to the poor, beggarly thieves.

The eighteen kept the woman, an