“You little blackguards!” cried Winthrop, stepping outside and confronting them, adding the inquiry, “Whose dog is that?”
“That audacious Caucasian has the bravado to interfere
with our clique,” tauntingly shrieked the indisputable little ruffian, exhibiting combativeness.
“What will you take for him?” asked the lenient Geoffrey, ignoring the venial tirade.
“Twenty-seven cents,” piquantly answered the ribald urchin, grabbing the crouching dog by the nape.
“You can buy licorice and share with the indicorous coadjutors of your condemnable cruelty,” said Winthrop, paying the price and taking the dog from the boy. Then catching up his valise and umbrella, he hastened to his train. Winthrop, satisfied himself that his sleek protégé was not wounded, and then cleared the cement from the pretty collar, and read these words:
“Leicester. Licensed, No. 1770.”
Hearing the pronunciation of his name, the docile canine expressed gratitude and pleasure, and then sank exhausted at his new patron’s feet and slept.
Among the other passengers was a magazine contributor, writing vagaries of Indian literature, also two physicians, a somber, irrevocable, irrefragable allopathist, and a genial homeopathist, who made a specialty of bronchitis. Two peremptory attorneys from the legislature of Iowa were discussing the politics of the epoch, and the details of national finance, while a wan, dolorous person, wearing concave glasses, alternately ate troches and almonds for a sedative, and sought condolence in a high lamentable treble from a lethargic and somewhat deaf and enervate comrade not yet acclimated.
Near three exemplary brethren (probably sinecurists) sat a group of humorous youths; and a jocose sailor (from Asia) in a blouse waist and tarpaulin hat, was amusing his patriotic juvenile listeners by relating a series of the most extraordinary legends extant, suggested by the contents of a knapsack, which