even of bilious philosophers, who think all well-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remain unrecognized (perhaps because it is seen so seldom).
“I know the chap as owns the ferrets,” said Bob, in a hoarse treble voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river, like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. “He lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg’s, he does. He’s the biggest rot-catcher anywhere, he is. I’d sooner, be a rot-catcher nor anything, I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun ha’ ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there’s that dog, now!” Bob continued, pointing with an air of disgust toward Yap, “he’s no more good wi’ a rot nor nothin’. I see it myself, I did, at the rot-catchin’ i’ your feyther’s barn.”
Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked his tail in and shrank close to Tom’s leg, who felt a little hurt for him, but had not the superhuman courage to seem behindhand with Bob in contempt for a dog who made so poor a figure.
“No, no,” he said, “Yap’s no good at sport. I’ll have regular good dogs for rats and everything, when I’ve done school.”
“Hev ferrets, Measter Tom,” said Bob, eagerly,—“them white ferrets wi’ pink eyes; Lors, you might catch your own rots, an’ you might put a rot in a cage wi’ a ferret, an’ see ’em fight, you might. That’s what I’d do, I know, an’ it ’ud be better fun a’most nor seein’ two chaps fight,—if it wasn’t them chaps as sold cakes an’ oranges at the Fair, as the things flew out o’ their baskets, an’ some o’ the cakes was smashed—But they tasted just as good,” added Bob, by way of note or addendum, after a moment’s pause.
“But, I say, Bob,” said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, “ferrets are nasty biting things,—they’ll bite a fellow without being set on.”
“Lors! why that’s the beauty on ’em. If a chap lays hold o’ your ferret, he won’t be long before he hollows out a good un, he won’t.”
At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly in their walk. It was the plunging of some small body in the water from among the neighboring bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat, Bob intimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasant consequences.
“Hoigh! Yap,—hoigh! there he is,” said Tom, clapping his hands, as the little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite bank. “Seize him, lad! seize him!”
Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge, trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well.
“Ugh! you coward!” said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling humiliated as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal. Bob abstained from remark and passed on, choosing, however, to walk in the shallow edge of the overflowing river by way of change.
“He’s none so full now, the Floss isn’t,” said Bob, as he kicked the water up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent to it. “Why, last ’ear, the meadows was all one sheet o’ water, they was.”
“Ay, but,” said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition between statements that were really accordant,—“but there was a big flood once, when the Round Pool was made. I know there was, ’cause father says so. And the sheep and cows all drowned, and the boats went all over the fields ever such a way.”
“I don’t care about a flood comin’,” said Bob; “I don’t mind the water, no more nor the land. I’d swim, I would.”
“Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long?” said Tom, his imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that dread. “When I’m a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on the top of it, like Noah’s ark, and keep plenty to eat in it,—rabbits and things,—all ready. And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I shouldn’t mind. And I’d take you in, if I saw you swimming,” he added, in the tone of a benevolent patron.
“I aren’t frighted,” said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear so appalling. “But I’d get in an’ knock the rabbits on th’ head when you wanted to eat ’em.”
“Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we’d play at heads-and-tails,” said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that this recreation might have fewer charms for his mature age. “I’d divide fair to begin with, and then we’d see who’d win.”
“I’ve got a halfpenny o’ my own,” said Bob, proudly, coming out of the water and tossing his halfpenny in the air. “Yeads or tails?”
“Tails,” said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.
“It’s yeads,” said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as it fell.
“It wasn’t,” said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. “You give me the halfpenny; I’ve won it fair.”
“I sha’n’t,” said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.
“Then I’ll make you; see if I don’t,” said Tom.
“Yes, I can.”
“You can’t make me do nothing, you can’t,” said Bob.
“No, you can’t.”
“I’m master.”
“I don’t care for you.”
“But I’ll make you care, you cheat,” said Tom, collaring Bob and shaking him.
“You get out wi’ you,” said Bob, giving Tom a kick.
Tom’s blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and threw him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and pulled Tom down after him. They struggled fiercely on the ground for a moment or two, till Tom, pinning Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the mastery.
“You, say you’ll give me the halfpenny now,” he said, with difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bob’s arms.
But at this moment Yap, who had been running on before, returned barking to the scene of action, and saw a favorable opportunity for biting Bob’s bare leg not only with inpunity but with honor. The pain from Yap’s teeth, instead of surprising Bob into a relaxation of his hold, gave it a fiercer tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force he pushed Tom backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could get no sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so that Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom, and, almost throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time Tom was up again, and before Bob had quite recovered his balance after the act of swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him, threw him down, and got his knees firmly on Bob’s chest.
“You give me the halfpenny now,” said Tom.
“Take it,” said Bob, sulkily.
“No, I sha’n’t take it; you give it me.”
Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it away from him on the ground.
Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise.
“There the halfpenny lies,” he said. “I don’t want your halfpenny; I wouldn’t have kept it. But you wanted to cheat; I hate a cheat. I sha’n’t go along with you any more,” he added, turning round homeward, not without casting a regret toward the rat-catching and other pleasures which he must relinquish along with Bob’s society.
“You may let it alone, then,” Bob called out after him. “I shall cheat if I like; there’s no fun i’ playing else; and I know where there’s a goldfinch’s nest, but I’ll take care you don’t. An’ you’re a nasty fightin’ turkey-cock, you are——”
Tom walked on without looking around, and Yap followed his example, the cold bath having moderated his passions.
“Go along wi’ you, then, wi’ your drowned dog; I wouldn’t own such a dog—I wouldn’t,” said Bob, getting