The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2: With a Preface and Annotations by James HoggDe Quincey, Thomas
General
The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2: With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg
De Quincey, Thomas
English literature
FROM WHICH MAY BE DESCRIED THE OBJECT OF MR. SCHNACKENBERGER'S JOURNEY
TO B----, AND A PROSPECT OF AN INTRODUCTION TO HIGH LIFE.
Mr. Schnackenberger's consternation was, in fact, not without very
rational grounds. The case was this. Juno was an English bitch--infamous
for her voracious appetite in all the villages, far and wide, about the
university--and, indeed, in all respects, without a peer throughout the
whole country. Of course, Mr. Schnackenberger was much envied on her
account by a multitude of fellow students; and very large offers were
made him for the dog. To all such overtures, however, the young man had
turned a deaf ear for a long time, and even under the heaviest pecuniary
distresses; though he could not but acknowledge to himself that Juno
brought him nothing but trouble and vexation. For not only did this
brute (generally called the monster) make a practice of visiting other
people's kitchens, and appropriating all unguarded dainties--but she
went even to the length of disputing the title to their own property
with he-cooks and she-cooks, butchers, and butchers' wives, &c.; and
whosoever had once made acquaintance with the fore-paws of this ravenous
lady, allowed her thenceforwards, without resistance, to carry off all
sausages or hams which she might choose to sequestrate, and directly
presented a bill to her master; in which bill it commonly happened that
indemnification for the fright, if not expressly charged as one of the
items, had a blank space, however, left for its consideration beneath
the sum total. At length, matters came to that pass, that the
reimbursement of Juno's annual outrages amounted to a far larger sum
than Mr. Schnackenberger's own--not very frugal expenditure. On a day,
therefore, when Juno had made an entire clearance of the larder
appropriated to a whole establishment of day-labourers--and Mr.
Schnackenberger had, in consequence, been brought into great trouble in
the university courts, in his first moments of irritation he asked his
friend Mr. Fabian Sebastian, who had previously made him a large offer
for the dog, whether he were still disposed to take her on those terms.
'Undoubtedly,' said Mr. Sebastian--promising, at the same time, to lay
down the purchase money on that day se'nnight, upon delivery of the
article.
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