h a fur cap on his head and a short pipe in his mouth,
stood before them.

"Come in, gents," said he. "Your dawg's at the other end of the yard,
Mr Stubbs, that's why you don't see him. He's had an orkardness with
Sayres, Mr Robarts' dog, as was in the next kennel, and I thought
they'd have strangled themselves a-trying to get at one another, and so
I had to separate them."

"Will it be safe to let him loose?" asked Stubbs.

"No fear; he will never go near the other while he's loose and the other
one chained up; besides, he'll be took up with seeing you, he will."

It was very pleasant to the feelings of Stubbs that his dog knew him,
which he evidently did, for he danced on his hind-legs, and wagged his
tail, and whimpered, and did all that a bull-terrier can do in the way
of smiling, when his proprietor approached for the purpose of freeing
him from his chain. Their interviews were not as frequent as either dog
or boy would have desired, but then they were very pleasant, for they
brought the former a short spell of liberty, a meal of biscuit or
paunch, and sometimes--oh, ecstasy!--the worrying of a rat, while Stubbs
enjoyed the sense of proprietorship, and the knowledge that he was doing
what was forbidden. He had dreams of leaving school and taking Topper
home with him, and owning him as his friend before all the world, and he
talked to Topper of that happy prospect, and Topper really quite seemed
to understand that Stubbs was his master, who had paid money for him,
and was now put to considerable expense for his board and lodging, let
alone the danger he ran in coming to visit him. To an outsider, calmly
reflecting, it did not seem a very good bargain for Stubbs, but still
very much better than that of Perry, his friend and present companion,
who kept a hawk, and vainly endeavoured to teach the bird to know him
and perch on his wrist. But Perry was fond of hawks, and much regretted
that the days were gone by when hawking was a favourite pastime.

The other two visitors at Slam's that evening were Saurin and Edwards.
Edwards had never been there before, and consequently his feelings were
curiously compounded of fear and pleasurable expectation. He had looked
from a distance at the place, the entrance to which was so sternly
forbidden, and imagined all sorts of delightful wickedness--how
delightful or why wicked he had no idea--going on inside. He was
considerably disappointed to find himself in a dirty yar