but the most he could do was strum on it with
his thumb. Together, they made a couple that anyone would look twice
at, and no one care to meet in a lonely place.

Bill, the dog, shared none of their picturesque quality. An uglier
dog never went footsore. A dozen breeds cropped out here and there on
his hardy body; his coat was distantly suggestive of a collie; his
tail of a terrier. But something of width between the patient eyes
and bluntness in the scarred muzzle spoke to a tough and hardy
ancestor in his discreditable pedigree, as though a lady of his house
had once gone away with a bulldog. His part in the company was to do
tricks outside beerhouses. When the Signor's strumming had gathered a
little crowd, Trotter would introduce Bill.

"Lydies and gents all," he would say, "with yore kind permission, I
will now introduce to yer the world-famous wolf 'ound Boris, late of
the Barnum menagerie in New York. 'E will commence 'is exhibition of
animal intelligence by waltzin' to the strines of Yankee Doodle on
the vi'lin."

Then the Signor would strum on two strings of the fiddle, smiling the
while a smile that no woman should see, and Bill would waltz
laboriously on his hind legs. After that he would walk on his front
legs, throw somersaults, find a hidden handkerchief, and so on. And
between each piece of clowning, he would go round with Trotter's hat
to collect coppers. Bill was an honest dog, and a fairly big one as
well, and when a man tried to ignore the hat, he had a way of drawing
back his lips from his splendid teeth which by itself was frequently
worth as much to the treasury as all his other tricks put together.
But the truth of it was, it was a feeble show, a scanty, pitiful
show; and only the gross truculence of Trotter and the venomous
litheness of the Signor withheld the average yokel from saying so
flatly.

But it gave them enough to live on and drink on. At any rate, Trotter
grew fat and the Signor grew thinner. Bill depended on what they had
left when they were satisfied; it was little enough. He begged at
cottages on his own account, sometimes; sitting up in the attitude of
mendicancy till something was thrown to him. Occasionally, too, he
stole fowls or raided a butcher's shop. Then Trotter and the Signor
would disown him vociferously to the bereaved one, and hasten on to
come up with him before he had eaten it all. He preferred being
beaten to going hungry, so they never caught him till he had fe