Never again will the long lazy evenings return wherein Ortheris,
whistling softly, moved surgeon-wise among the captives of his craft
at the bottom of the well; when Learoyd sat in the niche, giving sage
counsel on the management of 'tykes,' and Mulvaney, from the crook of
the overhanging _pipal_, waved his enormous boots in benediction
above our heads, delighting us with tales of Love and War, and strange
experiences of cities and men.
Ortheris--landed at last in the 'little stuff bird-shop' for which your
soul longed; Learoyd--back again in the smoky, stone-ribbed North, amid
the clang of the Bradford looms; Mulvaney--grizzled, tender, and very
wise Ulysses, sweltering on the earthwork of a Central India line--judge
if I have forgotten old days in the Trap!
Orth'ris, as allus thinks he knaws more than other foaks, said she
wasn't a real laady, but nobbut a Hewrasian. I don't gainsay as her
culler was a bit doosky like. But she _was_ a laady. Why, she rode iv a
carriage, an' good 'osses, too, an' her 'air was that oiled as you could
see your faice in it, an' she wore dimond rings an' a goold chain, an'
silk an' satin dresses as mun 'a' cost a deal, for it isn't a cheap shop
as keeps enough o' one pattern to fit a figure like hers. Her name was
Mrs. DeSussa, an't' waay I coom to be acquainted wi' her was along of
our Colonel's Laady's dog Rip.
I've seen a vast o' dogs, but Rip was t' prettiest picter of a cliver
fox-tarrier 'at iver I set eyes on. He could do owt you like but speeak,
an' t' Colonel's Laady set more store by him than if he hed been a
Christian. She hed bairns of her awn, but they was i' England, and Rip
seemed to get all t' coodlin' and pettin' as belonged to a bairn by good
right.
But Rip were a bit on a rover, an' hed a habit o' breakin' out o'
barricks like, and trottin' round t' plaice as if he were t' Cantonment
Magistrate coom round inspectin'. The Colonel leathers him once or
twice, but Rip didn't care an' kept on gooin' his rounds, wi' his taail
a-waggin' as if he were flag-signallin' to t' world at large 'at he was
'gettin' on nicely, thank yo', and how's yo'sen?' An' then t' Colonel,
as was noa sort of a hand wi' a dog, tees him oop. A real clipper of a
dog, an' it's noa wonder yon laady. Mrs. DeSussa, should tek a fancy
tiv him. Theer's one o' t' Ten Commandments says yo' maun't cuwet your
neebor's ox nor his jackass, but it doesn't say nowt about his tarrier
dogs, an' happen thot's t' reason why Mrs. DeSussa cuvveted Rip, tho'
she went to church reg'lar along wi' her husband who was so mich darker
'at if he hedn't such a good coaat tiv his back yo' might ha' called him
a black man and nut tell a lee nawther. They said he addled his brass i'
jute, an' he'd a rare lot on it.
Well, you seen, when they teed Rip up, t' poor awd lad didn't enjoy very
good 'elth. So t' Colonel's Laady sends for me as 'ad a naame for bein'
knowledgeable about a dog, an' axes what's ailin' wi' him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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