howl was music to his melody when
subjected to its control, so we were forced
to consider the second expedient. Being
myself of a somewhat bucolical turn, I
proposed a strong hurdle; but, though we
enlisted the milkman in our service, he
could not succeed in procuring a defence of
that sort, though he searched for one
throughout the length and breadth of Saint
Somebody's Forest (our district). I thought
of making a public appeal, and had already
written this heading to an advertisement,
—Wanted a Hurdle—when Mrs. Jones
interposed.

"A neat iron gate," she said, "with an
invisible wire, would look exceedingly pretty,
and keep Rough out of the garden more
effectually than fifty great staring——" I
decline to repeat the disparaging words.

To this I opposed the fact, that such a gate
would be expensive, but the answer I
received was, "Nonsense!"

Beaten out of my favourite scheme, I
could only reply, as many husbands have done
before me, that Mrs. Jones must do us she
liked, and the next day she informed me that
she had made an excellent arrangement
with a most respectable tradesman, who had
bound himself to make and set up the gate
exactly in the way she wished, for the
sum of five and sixpence of the current
coin of the realm. That same afternoon a
workman came to take measure of the
space where the barrier was to be fixed,
and he, too, in the hearing of Mrs.
Jones's confidential domestic, repeated the
terms of the agreement. This proved to be
a work of supererogation, on his part; a
proceeding wholly unnecessary; for, when he
returned with the gate in complete order, he
announced an advance in the price, to the tune
of thirty-five per cent.!

"It's all very well," observed Mrs. Jones;
"but a bargain is a bargain, and I have no
idea of paying a farthing more than I agreed
for."

The workman replied, that he was only a
servant, that that was what his master said,
and there the matter rested,—a wretched,
petty, miserable imbroglio, fraught with the
germs of future mischief.

"He won't dare to raise his charge," said
Mrs. Jones.

Rough, who was standing by, wagged his
tail but said nothing; no more did I.

Well, the gate was now called upon to
perform its duty, but, this was by no means
a matter of course. In the first place the
staples would not hold fast in the wall; in
the next, the sneck was turned upside
down; in the third, there was plenty
of space for Rough to get beneath the
gate; and in the fourth he had only to
scratch ever so little and there was room
for a passage close to the wall. Rough took
advantage of the uncertain staples; he was
artful enough to lift the gate out of the latch;
he was strong enough to force his way under;
and, as for scratching, that was only an
extra pleasure in essaying the several varieties
of his exodus. The gate, in short, was
an utter failure.

"If my hurdle had been there!" I
ejaculated; but Mrs. Jones either did not or
would not hear me.

Although bad workmanship had failed us,
one consolation remained. It was winter still,
and three or four mouths must elapse before
Rough could do the garden any serious
damage. I had time before me, and I said,
with King Lear, "I will do such things!
What they are, yet I know not; but they shall
be terrors of the earth;" or, if not that
exactly, something that shall astonish Master
Rough.

Meanwhile the inimitable Scotch terrier
carried on in the usual manner, eating and
sleeping, ad libitum, but, in the matter of
watchfulness, wholly discrediting Mrs. Jones's
prediction. Not that he was incapable of barking.
No! He would do that by the hour
together in front of the antagonistic cats; but,
when once he made himself up for the night,
embedded in fresh straw, he declined to take
the slightest notice of the outer world. Mrs.
Jones, however, was wedded to her theory,
and persisted in declaring, that he would
prove a capital house-dog—one of these days.

Events succeed each other so rapidly in
this world of ours, that what excites our
astonishment or indignation on Monday is
generally clean forgotten by Saturday: we
get reconciled to everything, even to the loss
of an incapable ministry: what wonder,
then, that I should have forgotten the affair
of the gate. Mrs. Jones, however—as she
has since confessed to me—had not; but she
remembered it only as a subject for mirth
and self-applause. She took it into her head,
as the ironmonger did not send in his bill at
Christmas, that he was ashamed to do so, or
had, perhaps, also forgotten it; as if anyone
ever forgot that money was owing. In this
Fools' Paradise Mrs. Jones continued until
a fortnight ago.

It was evening, one of those delicious
balmy evenings in May, when a fire is more
necessary than the depth of winter, and we
were sitting in my little study, each absorbed
by a favourite book. Our numerous household
were all from home, having gone out, as
they said, to buy a new bonnet-cap for the
next Sunday, and Rough had been consigned
to the outer air, with a view to the greater
security of the premises. After about half-an-hour
of that quiet, Mrs. Jones looked up,
and asked me what noise that was? I had
heard none, and said as much. Mrs. Jones,
however, felt certain that she had heard
something like a knock at the kitchen door.
"The rats," I carelessly observed, and went
on reading.

"There! " she continued, " I heard it
again!"