, he set back his head and laughed a laugh that was
good to hear.

Anyway, being continually pushed back into second place and compelled to
listen to the unearned applause bestowed upon the beautiful black seemed
to rob old Bob of all ambition professionally, and he simply became a
_gourmet_ and a glutton. He lived to eat. A woman in his eyes was a sort
of perambulating store-house of cake, crackers, apples, sugar, etc.; only
his love for children was disinterested. The moment he was loose he went
off in search for children, no matter whose, so long as he found some;
then down he would go on his knees, and wait to be pulled and patted. His
silvery tail provided hundreds of horse-hair rings--and his habit of
gathering very small people up by their back breadths and carrying them a
little way before dropping them, only filled the air with wild shrieks of
laughter. In the theatre he walked sedately about before rehearsal began,
and though we knew his attentions were entirely selfish, he was so
urbane, so complaisant in his manner of going through us, that we could
not resist his advances, and each day and night we packed our pockets and
our muffs with such provender as women seldom carry about in their
clothes. All our gloves smelled as though we worked at a cider-mill.
While the play was going on old Bob spent a great part of his time
standing on the first of those railed platforms, and as he was on the
same side of the stage that the ladies' dressing-rooms were on, everyone
of us had to pass him on our way to dress, and he demanded toll of all.
Fruits, domestic or foreign, were received with gentle eagerness. Cake,
crackers, and sugar, the velvety nose snuffed at them approvingly, and if
a girl, believing herself late, tried to pass him swiftly by, his look of
amazement was comical to behold, and in an instant his iron-shod foot was
playing a veritable devil's tattoo on the resounding board platform, and
if that failed to win attention, following her with his eyes, he lifted
up his voice in a full-chested "neigh--hay--hay--_ha-ay_!" that brought
her back in a hurry with her toll of sugar. And that pie-bald hypocrite
would scrunch it with such a piteously ravenous air that the girl quite
forgot the basilisk glare and satirical words the landlady directed
against her recently-acquired sweet-tooth. My own landlady had, as early
as Wednesday, covered the sugar-bowl and locked the pantry, but she left
the salt-bag open, and I