end by strategy.  Sneaking closely up to the wall, he moved cautiously forward, and when he had made the full circuit, he came smack up against his own tail.  Making a sudden spring, which must have stretched him like a bit of India-rubber, he fastened his teeth into his ham, hanging on like a country visitor.  He felt sure he had nailed the other dog, but he was equally confident the other dog had nailed him; so the problem was simplified to a mere question of endurance—­and Jerusalem was an animal of pluck.  The grim conflict was maintained all one day—­maintained with deathless perseverance, until Dad Petto discovered the belligerent and uncoupled him.  Then Jerusalem looked up at his master with a shake of the head, as much as to say:  “It’s a precious opportune arrival for the other pup; but who took him off me?”

I don’t think I can better illustrate the preposterous longitude of this pet, than by relating an incident that fell under my own observation.  I was one day walking along the highway with a friend who was a stranger in the neighbourhood, when a rabbit flashed past us, going our way, but evidently upon urgent business.  Immediately upon his heels followed the first instalment of Dad Petto’s mongrel, enveloped in dust, his jaws distended, the lower one shaving the ground to scoop up the rabbit.  He was going at a rather lively gait, but was some time in passing.  My friend stood a few moments looking on; then rubbed his eyes, looked again, and finally turned to me, just as the brute’s tail flitted by, saying, with a broad stare of astonishment: 

“Did you ever see a pack of hounds run so perfectly in line?  It beats anything!  And the speed, too—­they seem fairly blended!  If a fellow didn’t know better, he would swear there was but a single dog!”

I suppose it was this peculiarity of Jerusalem that had won old Petto’s regard.  He liked as much of anything as he could have for his money; and the expense of this creature, generally speaking, was no greater than that of a brief succinct bull pup.  But there were times when he was costly.  All dogs are sometimes “off their feed”—­will eat nothing for a whole day but a few ox-tails, a pudding or two, and such towelling as they can pick up in the scullery.  When Jerusalem got that way, which, to do him justice, was singularly seldom, it made things awkward in the near future.  For in a few days after recovering his passion for food, the effect of his former abstemiousness would begin to reach his stomach; but of course all he could then devour would work no immediate relief.  This he would naturally attribute to the quality of his fare, and would change his diet a dozen times a day, his menu in the twelve working hours comprising an astonishing range of articles, from a wood-saw to a kettle of soft soap—­edibles as widely dissimilar as the zenith and the nadir, which, also, he would eat.  So catholic an appetite was, of course, exceptional:  ordinarily Jerusalem was as narrow and illiberal as the best of us.  Give him plenty of raw beef, and he would not unsettle his gastric faith by outside speculation or tentative systems.