Kerr Mudgeon delights also to quicken the paces of your lounging dog, by such abrupt and sharp appeal to the feelings of the animal as occasion may suggest; and often there is an interchange of compliment, biped and quadrupedal, thus elicited, returning bites for blows, to square accounts between human attack and canine indignation. Some dogs do not appreciate graceful attentions and captivating endearments. “Dogs are so revengeful,” says Kerr Mudgeon. His dogs always run away; “dogs are so ungrateful, too,” quoth he. Unfortunate Kerr Mudgeon!—What is to become of him until the world is rendered more complaisant and acquiescent, prepared in all respects to go his way? In the street, he takes the straightest line from place to place, having learnt from his schoolboy mathematics, that this is decidedly the shortest method of going from place to place. And yet, how people jostle him, first on the right hand and then on the left? Why do they not clear the track for Kerr Mudgeon? Then at the Post Office, in the hour of delivery. Kerr Mudgeon wants his letters. What is more natural than that a man should want his letters? “Quit scrouging!” says somebody, as he knocks Mr. Kerr Mudgeon in the ribs with his elbow. “Wait for your turn!” cries somebody else, jostling Mr. Kerr Mudgeon on the opposite ribs. Still Kerr Mudgeon struggles through the press, resolved upon obtaining his letters before other people obtain their letters, having his feet trampled almost to a mummy, his garments disarranged, if not torn, and in addition to bruises, perhaps losing his fifty dollar breast-pin, to complete the harmony of the picture; but still obtaining his letters in advance of his competitors—five minutes saved or thereabouts—what triumph! what a victory! To be sure, after such a struggle, Mr. Kerr Mudgeon consumes much more than the five minutes, in putting himself to rights, and finds himself in a towering passion for an hour or two, besides groaning for a considerable length of time over his bruises and his losses, all of which might have been escaped by a few moments of patience. But then the victory—“you wont, wont you?” Was Kerr Mudgeon ever baffled by any species of resistance? Not he. “People are such brutes,” says he; “no more manners than so many pigs—try not to let me get my letters as soon as any of them, will they? I’ll teach ’em that a Kerr Mudgeon is not to be trifled with—just as good a right to be first as anybody; and I will be first, wherever I go, cost what it may.”