his calves, at the very least. A very ragged,
daring, vulgar-looking dog, white, with a huge
black patch upon the left eye, that from the
eminence of a large stone that commanded the left
extremity of the outposts, was pointed out to us as
a Rooshian; while the right extremity of the
outposts was held by a strange, long-bodied,
short-legged animal, with a squirrel's tail and a
snout like a pig, which strange animal, we were
told, was a Portuguese. He had been cast
ashore from a ship. Mac looked at his curious
property, and, as he thoughtfully scratched that
matted brown hair of his, he involuntarily
wandered back to the days when he first became
attached to the canine race—to the first dog of
his heart.

"It were forty-five year ago, ay, that it were,
every bit of it," said Mac, turning upon us to
see how we stood the astounding fact. And he
shook his head solemnly at us, and still, as we
politely said "Indeed," and tried to look
dumbfounded, he repeated, "Forty-five year, ay,
that it is. I'm sixty-eight, that I am!" Again
Mac believed that he had astonished us: and he
took that remarkable hat of his off, and striking
an attitude, challenged our credulity. "Ay,
and I've had twelve on 'em." Were we upon
our head or our heels? this was the question
which Mac's inquiring eyes sought to fathom
now. We conclude that our patient appearance
did not satisfy Mac's anticipations, since he
branched off from his autobiography suddenly to
his dogs. Dogs were his 'obby when he was a
boy. He remembered in Boney's time going
off to the fleet in the Downs, in the bum-boats,
and buying broken biscuit and biscuit dust of
the sailors. With "pot-wash," and the like, it
made good food for the dogs, and they thrived
upon it. Mac sidled to the Portuguese dog as
he spoke, and peered into the dilapidated
egg-chest which was the home of Don Pedro's canine
subject, to see if all were comfortable. The
beast licked his master's shoes. Mac declared
that he was a queer animal, and he had never
seen the like of him before. "They do tell me,"
added the proud master, "that in his own
country, he's a rare fellow after the parkipines."
We concluded that Mr. Mac meant porcupines.

Then Mac pressed us to peer into a dark
chamber cut in the rocks, where pigs were
wallowing in the dark, and where puppies were
feeding upon horseflesh. The passing gale was
scented with——Well, we held our breath, and
permitted Mac (who appeared to be in Arabia
Felix) to dwell upon the economy of his domain.

"It wouldn't do to feed nothing." This was
his fundamental maxim. He kept pigs while he
could collect enough gratuitous pot-wash to
keep them. To buy of the miller was ruin.
While he went about collecting pot-wash, he
picked up old tin, and iron, and glass. Then he
bought all the dead horses he could get, at a
price. He gave the miller, on the hill yonder, a
sovereign for his grey horse.

"You remember the grey mare?" said Mac,
turning his keen grey eyes sharply upon us.

We confessed our ignorance: Mac was
asonished at its profundity, but proceeded to
give us a few more hints, with the air of a man
who is throwing his knowledge away.

Yes, he gave a sovereign for the grey mare;
but then there was a little fat upon her, and he
could boil it down, and make a few shillings by
selling it to the farmers round about for cart-grease.
Well, then, the bones and hide fetched
him the rest of the money, and he had the flesh
for nothing, for his dogs. Mac now looked with
the triumphant air of a man who had mastered
a great difficulty. There was a superlatively
knowing look in his eye; but this was not all.
The mane went for horse-hair cloth; the hoofs
for gelatine; the liver, in a putrescent state, to
flavour London hashes, in the disguise of mushroom
sauce! The marrow of the bones became
dainty pomatum for Belinda's hair. The bones,
with a little sulphuric acid, made manure; with
flour, bread.

There is a merry twinkle in Mac's eye as he
proceeds. He has many knowing ways of turning
a penny; but, he returns to it again and
again, dogs are his 'obby. Nevertheless,
anything comes handy to him. When the mounds
of rusty tin before us have been doubled in
height and girth, he shall fill a ship with them
and send them to Wales. "They do tell me,"
added the old man, as he lifted a flattened saucepan,
"the sawder runs out of it, when they heat
it, like rain." Colour, he believed, was got from
the rust.

Mac would buy old rags, too. Nor was he
particular when knowing people put heavy
things in the middle of the bundle, with a notion
of cheating; for the weight was generally
something more valuable than the rags. Could
remember finding a patent lock worth five shillings
thrown in as a make-weight. "But I'm as poor
as Job," said Mac, fearing that we should infer,
from his shrewd business views, that he had
amassed money. "Poor as Job!" Mac repeated,
as he glanced into an open tub.

"That wasn't a bad job, neither." We
approached the tub. It contained a dead hog
Mac had bought, all for his voracious canine
outposts. "He brought him," said Mac,
nodding towards his donkey, which was nibbling
scanty grass by the roadside. "Ay, and that
donkey is equal to the biggest horse in the
island." Mac meant that his faithful steed
could drag home the heaviest dead horse in the
Isle of Thanet. Then we learned the age of the
donkey, and then the age of Mr. Mac's children.
He had had twelve, and he was as poor as Job,
he again and again said to us. And he had
reared 'em all, and he had never had a doctor.
He would pile wonder upon wonder before us.
He had never had no doctor. His old woman
doctored the children. They had the small-pox;
well, she gave 'em a little brimstone and treacle,
and they got over it. As for himself, he had the
cholera, but he did nothing for it, and there he
was. He cut his thumb nearly off (here a
ghastly wound was displayed)—people wanted
him to go to the doctor—but he just bound it