CH. XXXIII. THIEVISH PROPENSITIES OF DOGS. 203 



certainty some joint of meat has vanished with 

 him, but whither, or how, no one knows. 



Sometimes he manages not even to be suspected. 

 On one occasion five pounds of beefsteak suddenly 

 disappears. Every dog about the place is sus- 

 pected excepting Gripp, and he, " poor brute !" the 

 cook affirms, " cannot be the thief ; for he never 

 moved from the fire, where he was drying himself, 

 and he is the quietest dog in the world :" so says 

 my friend's cook, at the very time that the poor 

 good dog is suffering the most painful indigestion 

 from having swallowed so much raw meat in addi- 

 tion to his regular meals, and the extra scraps that 

 he has inveigled out of the cook by his unsophisti- 

 cated innocence. The next day half a haunch of 

 roebuck is gone : but Gripp still keeps his place 

 in the good graces of everybody. " It couldn't be 

 Gripp," is the universal cry ; " he wouldn't do such 

 a thing ! " At last Mr. Gripp is caught in the 

 very act of swallowing the remains of a pound of 

 butter, struggling in vain to bolt it at once ; but 

 the slippery lump will not go down. Then comes 

 a long train of circumstantial evidence, and a dozen 

 recent robberies are brought home to him. 



Now the beast was always well fed, and was 

 only impelled to steal by an hereditary irresistible 

 impulse, handed down to him from his grandfather 



