dwelling-house. The case was briefly this: Juno had opened so
detestable an overture of howling on her master's departure for the
forest, that the people at the Double-barrelled Gun, out of mere
consideration for the city of B----, had found it necessary to set her
at liberty; whereupon, as if the devil drove her, forthwith the brute
had gone off in search of her old young enemy the kitten, at the hotel
of the princess. She beat up the kitten's quarters again; and again she
drove in the enemy pell-mell into her camp in the kitchen. The young
mistress of the kitten, out of her wits at seeing her darling's danger,
had set down a pail of milk, in which she was washing a Brussels' veil
and a quantity of Mechlin lace belonging to the princess--and hurried
her kitten into a closet. In a moment she returned, and found--milk,
Brussels' veil, Mechlin lace, vanished--evaporated into Juno's throat,
'abiit--evasit--excessit--erupit!' only the milk-pail, upon some
punctilio of delicacy in Juno, was still there; and Juno herself stood
by, complacently licking her milky lips, and expressing a lively
satisfaction with the texture of Flanders' manufactures. The princess,
vexed at these outrages on her establishment, sent a message to the
town-council, desiring that banishment for life might be inflicted on a
dog of such revolutionary principles, whose presence (as she understood)
had raised a general consternation throughout the city of B----.

Mr. Mayor, however, had not forgotten the threatened report of a certain
retreat to a bell, illustrated by wood-cuts; and therefore, after
assuring her Highness of his readiness to serve her, he added, that
measures would be adopted to prevent similar aggressions--but that
unhappily, from peculiar circumstances connected with this case, no
further severities could be inflicted. Meantime, while this note was
writing, Juno had contrived to liberate herself from arrest.

Scarce had she been absent three minutes, when in rushed to the
town-council the eternal enemy of the Mayor--Mr. Deputy Recorder. The
large goose's liver, the largest, perhaps, that for some centuries had
been bred and born in B----, and which was destined this very night to
have solemnised the anniversary of Mrs. Deputy Recorder's birth; this
liver, and no other, had been piratically attacked, boarded, and
captured, in the very sanctuary of the kitchen, 'by that flibustier
(said he) that buccaneer--that Paul Jones of a Juno.' Dash