4 CHEAP AND GOOD LIVING. 



many a time I've felt queer when he has 

 called out to me, "Hoy! lay down your 

 broom, and come and take these bones off 

 the grass," which the dogs had done with; 

 and then he'd be stroking them, and saying, 

 " Good dog, good dog ;" and they so fat and 

 I so lean, they so sleek and I so patchy, I 

 often felt quite mangy among them. But 

 I'd a bold heart my father was a pensioner 

 for wounds in battle and carried my head 

 up as well as I could. From the kitchen I 

 got nothing, except a cuff from the cook, 

 which she never did twice, however, for she 

 liked the advantage, which that time she 

 didn't get ; but I managed pretty well, es- 

 pecially in hard weather, when mine and the 

 birds' appetites were the keenest ; for then 

 I caught them, ay, and cooked them too ; 

 and this was my plan : I'd pull a lot of spar- 

 rows, or maybe some blackbirds and thrushes, 

 and then cut 'em down the back, and filled 

 their bodies full of bread ; put them in a tin 

 dish, cover another over them, and put the 

 lot pretty close up to the bars of the stoke- 

 hole on the top of a bank of hot ashes. When 

 done, and it did not take long, there was a 

 supper for my master, if he had but had my 



