were—still not unlike them—very tall and
very dull. How long the Dogs may have
had their eyes of temptation upon this street
is unknown to me, but they called to it, and
it went. The biggest house—it was a corner
one—went first. An ancient gentleman died
in it; and the undertaker put up a gaudy
hatchment that looked like a very bad
transparency, not intended to be seen by day, and
only meant to be illuminated at night; and
the attorney put up a bill about the lease,
and put in an old woman (apparently with
nothing to live upon but a cough), who crept
away into a corner like a scared old
dormouse, and rolled herself up in a blanket.
The mysterious influence of the Dogs was on
the house, and it immediately began to
tumble down. Why the infection should
pass over fourteen houses to seize upon the
fifteenth, I don't know; but, fifteen doors
off next began to be fatally dim in the
windows; and after a short decay, its eyes were
closed by brokers, and its end was desolation
The best house opposite, unable to bear these
sights of woe, got out a black board with all
despatch, respecting unexpired remainder of
term, and cards to view; and the family fled
and a bricklayer's wife and children came in
to " mind " the place, and dried their little
weekly wash on lines hung across the dining-
room. Black boards, like the doors of so
many hearses taken off the hinges, now
became abundant. Only one speculator, without
suspicion of the Dogs upon his soul,
responded. He repaired and stuccoed number
twenty-four, got up an ornamented
parapet and balconies, took away the
knockers, and put in plate glass, found
too late that all the steam power on earth
could never have kept the street from the
Dogs when it was once influenced to go, and
drowned himself in a water butt. Within a
year, the house he had renewed became the
worst of all; the stucco decomposing like a
Stilton cheese, and the ornamented parapet
coming down in fragments like the sugar of
a broken twelfth cake. Expiring efforts were
then made by a few of the black boards to
hint at the eligibility of these commodious
mansions for public institutions, and suites of
chambers. It was useless. The thing was
done. The whole street may now be bought
for a mere song. But, nobody will hear of it,
for who dares dispute possession of it with
the Dogs!

Sometimes, it would seem as if the least
yelp of these dreadful animals, did the business
at once. Which of us does not remember
that eminent person—with indefinite resources
in the City, tantamount to a gold mine—who
had the delightful house near town, the
famous gardens and gardener, the beautiful
plantations, the smooth green lawns, the
pineries, the stabling for five-and-twenty
horses, and the standing for half-a-dozen
carriages, the billiard-room, the music-room, the
picture gallery, the accomplished daughters
and aspiring sons, all the pride pomp and
circumstance of riches? Which of us does
not recal how we knew him through the good
offices of our esteemed friend Swallowfly, who
was ambassador on the occasion? Which of
us cannot still hear the gloating roundness of
tone with which Swallowfly informed us
that our new friend was worth five hun-dred
thou-sand pounds, sir, if he was worth a
penny? How we dined there with all the
Arts and Graces ministering to us, and how
we came away reflecting that wealth after all
was a desirable delight, I need not say. Neither
need I tell, how we every one of us met
Swallowfly within six little months of that
same day, when Swallowfly observed, with such
surprise, " You haven't heard? Lord bless
me! Ruined—Channel Islands—gone to the
Dogs!"

Sometimes again, it would seem as though
in exceptional cases here and there, the Dogs
relented, or lost their power over the
imperilled man in an inscrutable way. There
was my own cousin—he is dead now, therefore
I have no objection to mention his name
—Tom Flowers. He was a bachelor
(fortunately), and, among other ways he had of
increasing his income and improving his
prospects, betted pretty high. He did all
sorts of things that he ought not to have
done, and he did everything at a great
pace, so it was clearly seen by all who knew
him that nothing would keep him from the
Dogs; that he was running them down hard,
and was bent on getting into the very midst
of the pack with all possible speed. Well! He
was as near them, I suppose, as ever man was,
when he suddenly stopped short, looked
them full in their jowls, and never stirred
another inch onward, to the day of his death.
He walked about for seventeen years, a very
neat little figure, with a capital umbrella, an
excellent neckcloth, and a pure white shirt,
and he had not got a hair's-breadth nearer
to the horrible animals at the end of that
time than he had when he stopped. How he
lived, our family could never make out—
whether the Dogs can have allowed him
anything will always be a mystery to me—but, he
disappointed all of us in the matter of the
canine epitaph with which we had expected
to dismiss him, and merely enabled us to
remark that poor Tom Flowers was gone at
sixty-seven.

It is overwhelming to think of the Treasury
of the Dogs. There are no such fortunes
embarked in all the enterprises of life, as have
gone their way. They have a capital Drama,
for their amusement and instruction. They
have got hold of all the People's holidays for
the refreshment of weary frames, and the
renewal of weary spirits. They have left the
People little else in that way but a Fast now
and then for the ignorances and imbecilities
of their rulers. Perhaps those days will
go next. To say the plain truth very
seriously, I shouldn't be surprised.