Each pretty creature lay panting on the great heap of straw, while their friend fanned them with her hat; they looking as if they would intreat her not to trouble herself, if they could but find voice. How fresh came in the cool air,—how bright did the pale sunshine look,—when the doors were once more thrown wide! When the crowd were convinced that nothing more was to be expected from the dog, and that the best chance of amusement lay in finding out how many people he might have bitten in the town, the field was presently cleared, and the thresher returned to the barn. While wiping his flail, preparatory to using it again, he growled and grumbled about the danger from mad dogs, and its increase of late. In his young days, nobody thought of dogs being mad later in the year than September. We should soon be subject to them all the year round, he supposed. Fanny supposed this individual dog had been driven mad by some particular accident or ill-usage. As for the rest, how was it to be helped? Did the thresher mean to say that it was any body’s fault that there were more mad dogs than formerly? “Ay, ay,” replied the thresher. “If dogs were taxed as they should be, they would not swarm as they do in the dog-days.” “But I thought there was abundance of taxation of dogs: I am sure my brothers pay as much for theirs as would maintain a poor man’s family. There is a duty of six-and-thirty pounds on their pack of hounds, in the first place; and then fourteen shillings a-head on all their other dogs, which are not a few.” “Very well—very right,” observed the thresher. “Your brothers are not the gentlemen to grumble at paying for luxuries, I dare say, any more than these young ladies have hitherto grudged their pound a year for the pretty creature behind there,” nodding towards the back of the barn. The girls looked at one another, not having been aware that the possession of Fido would bring upon Sarah or her father the expense of a pound a year duty. Fanny thought nothing could be more proper than that her brothers should pay duty for their luxuries, whether of dogs, horses, or any thing else. If they grew displeased with the expense, they had only to give up the indulgence, which was more than the poor man could do in regard to the taxed articles used by him. She only mentioned what her brothers paid because the thresher seemed to think dogs were not sufficiently taxed.