Besides, he had the satisfaction of observing that, for every kick he received, most other living things in the room got two. As for the unfortunate pig--the stationary one, the one that still sat lamenting in the centre of the room--he must have averaged a steady four. Trying to kick this dog was like playing football with a ball that was never there--not when you went to kick it, but after you had started to kick it, and had gone too far to stop yourself, so that the kick had to go on in any case, your only hope being that your foot would find something or another solid to stop it, and so save you from sitting down on the floor noisily and completely. When anybody did kick the dog it was by pure accident, when they were not expecting to kick him; and, generally speaking, this took them so unawares that, after kicking him, they fell over him. And everybody, every half-minute, would be certain to fall over the pig the sitting pig, the one incapable of getting out of anybody's way. How long the scrimmage might have lasted it is impossible to say. It was ended by the judgment of George. For a while he had been seeking to catch, not the dog but the remaining pig, the one still capable of activity. Cornering it at last, he persuaded it to cease running round and round the room, and instead to take a spin outside. It shot through the door with one long wail. We always desire the thing we have not. One pig, a chicken, nine people, and a cat, were as nothing in that dog's opinion compared with the quarry that was disappearing. Unwisely, he darted after it, and George closed the door upon him and shot the bolt. Then the landlord stood up, and surveyed all the things that were lying on the floor. "That's a playful dog of yours," said he to the man who had come in with the brick. "He is not my dog," replied the man sullenly. "Whose dog is it then?" said the landlord. "I don't know whose dog it is," answered the man. "That won't do for me, you know," said the landlord, picking up a picture of the German Emperor, and wiping beer from it with his sleeve. "I know it won't," replied the man; "I never expected it would. I'm tired of telling people it isn't my dog. They none of them believe me." "What do you want to go about with him for, if he's not your dog?" said the landlord. "What's the attraction about him?" "I don't go about with him," replied the man; "he goes about with me. He picked me up this morning at ten o'clock, and he won't leave me. I thought I had got rid of him when I came in here. I left him busy killing a duck more than a quarter of an hour away. I'll have to pay for that, I expect, on my way back." "Have you tried throwing stones at him?" asked Harris.