Ah! few of us know how actors live on that elusive thing, the favour of the public, and what renewed force, when they are grown old and have one foot in the grave already, what fresh vigour the smiles of a delighted audience instil in their veins, when the blood is beginning to run feeble! No, the thankless audience did not for once acknowledge Murph as their old favourite, the veteran of the boards, the good and gallant beast that had so often been their darling and their delight. Under his outward show of indifference Murph hid a vast fund of sensibility, and the coldness of his audience cut him to the quick, coming so soon after his late successes. He thought the dark night of public neglect was beginning for him; he realised his loss of vigour, his waning energies, and, like other old players, he saw himself superannuated, out of date, unknown, and misunderstood by a new public, become a mere shadow on the scene of his former triumphs. Add to this his master’s evident ill-humour, as he foresaw the inevitable moment when his old servant would be a mere pensioner on his bounty. Murph staggered off, and fell panting on the rug that formed his bed. Then Jack came to help him; but, alas! even Jack could not console him just at first. Murph rejected his friend’s ministrations, so bitter was his rancour against mankind. But his pique was soon over, and his wounded heart found healing under the gentle hand of his lifelong companion. XI But the fatal hour had struck; old age was upon him. Murph had grown infirm; he would take a dozen steps, crawling from one corner to another, and then sink down helplessly. His legs, once so prodigiously strong and active, tottered and stumbled from sheer weakness. In vain his master’s voice called him to show his tricks; he would struggle to his feet, for an instant his head would recover its proud carriage of old days; then suddenly, his momentary strength exhausted, his limbs tingling with rheumatic pains that cut like whip-lashes, he would slink away to fall back again into the lifeless attitude of an aged invalid. A cloud floated before his eyes, he could no longer see things clearly, and a growing deafness filled his head with a buzz-buzzing that never stopped. Life was slowly dying down in the old body. He would lie torpid for hours and doze away the time in dark corners, under tables, where nothing would wake him, neither the yapping of the other dogs nor the chattering of the monkeys, neither the noise of footsteps coming and going nor the shrill trumpetings of the clown’s cornet-à-piston playing “Malbrouck s’en va-t-en guerre!”