"Hunger, perhaps," said the Comedian; "'t is his way when he has been kept fasting much over his usual hours. Follow me, Sophy." He put aside the woman, entered the sanded kitchen, ascended a stair that led from it; and Sophy following, stopped at a door and listened: not a sound. Timidly he unlocked the portals and crept in, when, suddenly such a rush,--such a spring, and a mass of something vehement yet soft, dingy yet whitish, whirled past the actor, and came pounce against Sophy, who therewith uttered a shriek. "Stop him, stop him, for heaven's sake," cried Waife. "Shut the door below,--seize him." Downstairs, however, went the mass, and downstairs after it hobbled Waife, returning in a few moments with the recaptured and mysterious fugitive. "There," he cried triumphantly to Sophy, who, standing against the wall with her face buried in her frock, long refused to look up,--"there,--tame as a lamb, and knows me. See!" he seated himself on the floor, and Sophy, hesitatingly opening her eyes, beheld gravely gazing at her from under a profusion of shaggy locks an enormous-- CHAPTER III. Denoumente! POODLE! CHAPTER IV. Zoology in connection with history. "Walk to that young lady, sir,--walk, I say." The poodle slowly rose on his hind legs, and, with an aspect inexpressibly solemn, advanced towards Sophy, who hastily receded into the room in which the creature had been confined. "Make a bow--no--a bow, sir; that is right: you can shake hands another time. Run down, Sophy, and ask for his dinner." "Yes; that I will;" and Sophy flew down the stairs. The dog, still on his hind legs, stood in the centre of the floor dignified, but evidently expectant. "That will do; lie down and die. Die this moment, sir." The dog stretched himself out, closed his eyes, and to all appearance gave up the ghost. "A most splendid investment," said Waife, with enthusiasm; "and upon the whole, clog cheap. Ho! you are not to bring up his dinner; it is not you who are to make friends with the dog; it is my little girl; send her up; Sophy, Sophy!" "She be fritted, sir," said the woman, holding a plate of canine comestibles; "but lauk, sir, bent he really dead?" "Sophy, Sophy" "Please let me stay here, Grandy," said Sophy's voice from the foot of the stairs. "Nonsense! it is sixteen hours since he has had a morsel to eat. And he will never bite the hand that feeds him now. Come up, I say." Sophy slowly reascended, and Waife summoning the poodle to life, insisted upon the child's feeding him. And indeed, when that act of charity was performed, the dog evinced his gratitude by a series of unsophisticated bounds and waggings of the tail, which gradually removed Sophy's apprehensions, and laid the foundation for that intimate friendship which is the natural relation between child and dog. "And how did you come by him?" asked Sophy; "and is this really the--the INVESTMENT?"