A plentiful shower of halfpence was thrown into the pit as a reward for the second who had backed the dog.
A slight pause now took place in the proceedings, during which the landlord requested that the gentlemen “would give their minds up to drinking; you know the love I have for you,” he added jocularly, “and that I don’t care for any of you;” whilst the waiter accompanied the invitation with a cry of “Give your orders, gentlemen,” and the lad with the rats asked if “any other gentleman would like any rats.”
Several other dogs were tried, and amongst them one who, from the size of his stomach, had evidently been accustomed to large dinners, and looked upon rat-killing as a sport and not as a business. The appearance of this fat animal was greeted with remarks such as “Why don’t you feed your dog?” and “You shouldn’t give him more than five meals a-day.”
Another impatient bull-terrier was thrown into the midst of a dozen rats. He did his duty so well, that the admiration of the spectators was focussed upon him.
“Ah,” said one, “he’d do better at a hundred than twelve;” whilst another observed, “Rat-killing’s his game, I can see;” while the landlord himself said, “He’s a very pretty creetur’, and I’d back him to kill against anybody’s dog at eight and a half or nine.”
The Captain was so startled with this terrier’s “cleverness,” that he vowed that if she could kill fifteen in a minute “he’d give a hundred guineas for her.”
It was nearly twelve o’clock before the evening’s performance concluded. Several of the spectators tried their dogs upon two or three rats, either the biggest or the smallest that could be found: and many offers as to what “he wanted for the dog,” and many inquiries as to “who was its father,” were made before the company broke up.
At last the landlord, finding that no “gentleman would like a few rats,” and that his exhortations to “give their minds up to drinking” produced no further effect upon the company, spoke the epilogue of the rat tragedies in these words;—
“Gentlemen, I give a very handsome solid silver collar to be killed for next Tuesday. Open to all the world, only they must be novice dogs, or at least such as is not considered pheenomenons. We shall have plenty of sport, gentlemen, and there will be loads of rat-killing. I hope to see all my kind friends, not forgetting your dogs, likewise; and may they be like the Irishman all over, who had good trouble to catch and kill ’em, and took good care they didn’t come to life again. Gentlemen, there is a good parlour down-stairs, where we meets for harmony and entertainment.”