"First rate," said he, "hand us another."
I jumped back in astonishment.
"What! you can talk, can you, my Bucephalus, and in English too? That is something new."
"Not so new as you think, my dear sir, for I will let you into a little bit of a secret. Ass as I am, and as you see me to be, I was a man in my time and a butcher by trade. I had an ass that I treated most scurvily, just as they do me now; giving him his bellyful of blows and kicks, but of very little [{689}] else. Poor Jack--that was his name--kept Lent all the year round, it being in the interest of my customers, as I often said to myself, to quiet the qualms of conscience when I gave him but half what he could eat. Let him stuff himself said I, and he will get fat and lazy, the meat will come late to the cook, the cook will be late with the dinner, and the hungry family will lose their temper, and I shall lose their custom, while good doses of the oil of strap will help his digestion wonderfully, and keep him lively. However, this last end was not attained, for the poor ass kicked the traces--professional term, you understand--and went to the bone-boilers before his time. When it came to my turn to tie up--again professional--and go off the cart, my soul was condemned to go into an ass's body to suffer for a certain time the punishment of retaliation. Drubbing for drubbing, kicks of hobnailed shoes for kicks of peg boots, I got what I gave, and good measure too, I assure yon. Do you see that half starved, thin-flanked old horse over there? Well, he is a companion in misery to me. In his time he was a hack-driver, and many a time in his fits of anger and drunkenness, he made an anvil of the backbone or the jaws of his horses. Only in those times, now and then, you understand, but those times happened often enough, say once an hour or so, every day. As to hay and oats, he tried to teach them, but without success, to go without those articles of luxury. When his turn came to pay up old debts, his soul was condemned to go into that sorry old carcass, in which he passes many a miserable quarter of an hour. He is a ragpicker's property now. How do you like that specimen of 'the noblest conquest that man has ever made'? As to me, Sawney, at your service, I think the end of my punishment is not far off. It was given me to understand that when a benevolent gentleman would offer me a thistle for friendship's sake, it would end, and it is to you I owe this act of kindness, my dear Mr. Miller."
"Good again, you are a wiser ass than I took you for. How do you know my name, master Sawney?"
"This way, sir. The other day I chanced to be tied to a post, near a hedge, on the other side of which, in a meadow, some folks were having a little picnic on the grass. After a while a tall lady in spectacles took out some papers and began to read for the company. She seemed to be reading, from what I could make out, in some magazine or other. I soon understood that the subject was asses, and then of course I cocked up my ears to their full height. It was true, it was about us, abused and misunderstood beasts that we are. The articles read by the tall lady were so full of kindness, and contained such flattering remarks upon our species, that it almost brought the tears to my eyes. The name signed to those articles was Jeremiah Miller. Oh! said I to myself, that is a man whom one could call a man. There is one at least who understands us and loves us; I promise myself that if I ever have the good fortune to meet him I will give him--in lieu of anything better--my blessing. You see that when you spoke to me just now so kindly, I said to myself, I wonder if this be not Mr. Jeremiah Miller, and then I called you by that name, and I see that I have just hit it."
"But"--my reader will say "of course you don't tell this story for a true one! You would never have the face to ask us to believe that this brayer actually spoke to you?"
And, pray, why not? But, after all it is possible I fell asleep on a mossy bank, in a meadow, near where an ass was tied, and that I dreamed what I have told you. But dreams with the eyes shut are not always so very unlike the dreams we sometimes have when our eyes are open. As for myself, whenever I see a poor beast of burden brutally maltreated by another beast, who strikes and kicks as if he [{690}] meant murder, I allow my fancy to be tickled with a vision of this latter brute obliged to creep into the skin of a horse or ass, and take his turn at being unjustly whipped, without having any attention paid to his bray or his neigh of expostulation or defence. You see that I am in every respect worthy of figuring among the members of the society for the prevention, etc., etc., but--
II.
But--I hold to the great principles of '76, and first of all to that of equality. If we must have a law for the protection of domestic animals against the men who torment them, I would like to see a law devised to protect men against the animals who are a pest to poor humanity, for the shoe sometimes gets on the other foot.