"I should not think you could smell
carrion in that house," said a stage agent. Whereupon the soap-maker
dropped his head, with a little snort, as it were, of wounded feeling;
but immediately said that he took all in good part. There was an old
squire of the village, a lawyer probably, whose demeanor was different,--
with a distance, yet with a kindliness; for he remembered the times when
they met on equal terms. "You and I," said the squire, alluding to their
respective troubles and sicknesses, "would have died long ago, if we had
not had the courage to live." The poor devil kept talking to me long
after everybody else had left the stoop, giving vent to much practical
philosophy, and just observation on the ways of men, mingled with rather
more assumption of literature and cultivation than belonged to the
present condition of his mind. Meantime his great dog, a cleanly looking
and not ill-bred dog, being the only decent attribute appertaining to his
master,--a well-natured dog, too, and receiving civilly any demonstration
of courtesy from other people, though preserving a certain distance of
deportment,--this great dog grew weary of his master's lengthy talk, and
expressed his impatience to be gone by thrusting himself between his
legs, rolling over on his back, seizing his ragged trousers, or playfully
taking his maimed, bare foot into his mouth,--using, in short, the kindly
and humorous freedom of a friend, with a wretch to whom all are free
enough, but none other kind.
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