t of the leather of some ancient breechin. His mouth was
open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage--a sort of terrible
grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out of the darkness; the strap
across his mouth tense as a bow string; his whole frame stiff with
indignation and surprise; his roar asking us all round, "Did you ever
see the like of this?"

He looked a statue of anger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen granite.

We soon had a crowd; the Chicken held on. "A knife!" cried Bob; and a
cobbler gave him his knife; you know the kind of knife, worn away
obliquely to a point, and always keen. I put its edge to the tense
leather; it ran before it; and then!--one sudden jerk of that enormous
head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise, and the bright and
fierce little fellow is dropped, limp, and dead. A solemn pause; this
was more than any of us had bargained for. I turned the little fellow
over, and saw he was quite dead; the mastiff had taken him by the small
of the back, like a rat, and broken it.

He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed and amazed; snuffed him
all over, stared at him, and taking a sudden thought, turned round and
trotted off.

Bob took the dead dog up, and said, "John, we'll bury him after tea."

[Illustration: "RAB, YE THIEF!"]

"Yes," said I, and was off after the mastiff. He made up the Cowgate at
a rapid swing; he had forgotten some engagement. He turned up the
Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the Harrow Inn.

There was a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient,
black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's head looking
about angrily for something.

"Rab, ye thief!" said he, aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew
cringing up, and avoiding the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity,
and watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed under the cart--his ears
down, and as much as he had of tail down too.

What a man this must be--thought I--to whom my tremendous hero turns
tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his
neck, and I eagerly told him the story which Bob and I always thought,
and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter, alone were worthy
to rehearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to
say, "Rab, ma man, puir Rabbie"--whereupon the stump of a tail rose up,
the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted; the two
friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of the w