Bones were delicious, but strange to say neither Flo, nor Dick, nor Jenks ever ate them!
A nice pork or mutton chop: how good they were—too good for a hungry dog to think about patiently, as he reflected that a chop, if he could get it, would be only supper, and not too large a supper, for one.
No, he must give up that butcher’s meat in which his spirit delighted and attack the bread shops.
A loaf of bread would satisfy them both!
Rising to his feet, and bestowing on Flo one or two looks of intense intelligence, looks which said as plainly as possible, “I have not an idea of deserting you, I am going for our supper,” he started off.
Up the ladder with nimble steps he went, and then, by a succession of cunning dives, along the street, until he came to the butchers’ stalls.
Here his demeanour totally changed, he no longer looked timid and cowed: the currish element very prominent when, with his tail between his legs, he had scuttled up Duncan Street, now had vanished; he walked along the centre of the road soberly and calmly, a meditative look in his eyes, like a dog that has just partaken of a good dinner, and is out for a constitutional: not one glance did he cast at the tempting morsels, so near and yet so far.
A baker’s cart turned the corner—this was what Scamp wanted, and expected. He joined the cart unknown to the baker’s boy, he walked demurely behind, to all appearance guarding the tempting, freshly-baked loaves. His eye was on them and yet not on them.
To the passers-by he looked like a very faithful, good kind of dog, who would fasten his teeth into the leg of any one who attempted to appropriate his master’s property.
More than one little hungry street gamin, on thieving intent, wished him anything but well as he passed.