The report of his riches, and the idea of its concealment about the house, once brought a troop of house-breakers, who very easily entered, and, without any search-warrant, rummaged every corner of the place; but although this domiciliary visit cost the lives of some of them, they took away but little property. Old Dancer had been long on his guard; and his mode of hiding was so peculiar to himself, that the grand object of the thieves was never discoverable by them. Mr. Dancer concealed his treasure where no one could ever think of seeking for it. Bank notes were usually deposited with the spiders; they were hid amongst the cobwebs in the cow-house; and guineas in holes in the chimney, and about the fire-place, covered with soot and ashes. Soon after the robbery, when the thieves were apprehended, and to be tried, it being very necessary that Mr. Dancer should attend the trial, Lady Tempest requested that in order to appear a little decent, he would change his shirt, and she would lend him a clean one. "No, no," he replied, "it is not necessary. The shirt I have on is quite _new_; I bought it only three weeks ago, and then it was clean." His extreme love of money overcame every other consideration; and to this idol, Mammon, he even sacrificed brotherly affection. From the evident want of this principle, and to his attachment to gain, may be accounted his strange behaviour, as before related, to his sister at her latter end. But in one singular instance, and to the canine species too, he seemed, in some measure, to forego his favourite idea of saving. This was a dog, of which he was extremely fond, and which he called by the familiar appellation of, _Bob my child_. His treatment of this animal affords an instance of that inconsistency of human acting, which philosophy seeks in vain to account for. While his self-denial was so severe that he denied himself a penny loaf a day, and existed entirely upon Lady Tempest's pot liquor and scraps from her kitchen, of which he would cram so greedily, that he was frequently under the necessity of rolling himself upon the floor before he could go to sleep, he allowed this dog, he called Bob, a pint of milk daily; and this he paid for as it was constantly supplied by a neighbouring farmer, when he had parted with his farming stock, and had not one cow left. Once upon a time a complaint being made to him that his dog Bob had worried some of his neighbour's sheep, he took the dog to a farrier's shop, and had all his teeth filed down. [Illustration] For this barbarous action he never gave any reason; possibly it might be to prevent the like again; as he might shrewdly guess, that any further damage from his dog's mischievous manner might bring expenses upon him, as he was certainly liable to be compelled to pay them.