.'

"The next morning Jack was going round and round the lake, trying about
the edge of it, if he could find any place shallow enough to wade in;
but he might as well go to wade the say, and what was worst of all, if
he attempted to swim, it would be like a tailor's goose, straight to
the bottom; so he kept himself safe on dry land, still expecting a visit
from the 'lovely crathur,' but, bedad, his good luck failed him for
wanst, for instead of seeing her coming over to him, so mild and sweet,
who does he obsarve steering at a dog's trot, but his ould friend the
smoking cur. 'Confusion to that cur,' says Jack to himself, 'I know now
there's some bad fortune before me, or he wouldn't be coming acrass me.'

"'Come home to your breakfast, Jack,' says the dog, walking up to him,
'it's breakfast time.'

"'Ay,' says Jack, scratching his head, 'it's no matter whether I do or
not, for I bleeve my head's hardly worth a flat-dutch cabbage at the
present speaking.'

"'Why, man, it was never worth so much,' says the baste, pulling out his
pipe and putting it in his mouth, when it lit at once.

"'Take care of yourself,' says Jack, quite desperate,--for he thought he
was near the end of his tether,--'take care of yourself, you dirty cur,
or maybe I might take a gintleman's toe from your tail.'

"'You had better keep a straight tongue in your head,' says four-legs,
'while it's on your shoulders, or I'll break every bone in your
skin--Jack, you're a fool,' says he, checking himself, and speaking
kindly to him--'you're a fool; didn't I tell you the other day to do
what you were bid, and keep never minding?'

"'Well,' thought Jack to himself, 'there's no use in making him any more
my enemy than he is--particularly as I'm in such a hobble.'

"'You lie,' says the dog, as if Jack had spoken out to him, wherein he
only thought the words to himself, 'you lie,' says he, 'I'm not, nor
never was, your enemy, if you knew but all.'

"'I beg your honor's pardon,' answers Jack, 'for being so smart with
your honor, but, bedad, if you were in my case,--if you expected your
master to roast you alive,--eat his dinner of your body,--make you sing
the 'Black Joke,' by way of music for him; and, to crown all, know that
your head was to be stuck upon a hook after--maybe you would be a little
short, in your temper, as well as your neighbors.'

"'Take heart, Jack,' says the other, laying his fore claw as knowingly
as ever along his nose, and winkin