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ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



not " rile" him a bit : whenever we called his name he 

 looked up with his mouth full of corn-cake or responded 

 with a complacent grunt, while he attended to the dogs 

 in a sort of absent-minded way as a man would to a 

 swarm of flies. But, with all his nonchalance, he knew 

 exactly what he was about : nearly every slap was a hit, 

 and every hit did the business for that particular pincher. 

 When four of them lay howling and grovelling in the 

 opposite corner of the room, the rest became meditative 

 and waited for special instructions before they renewed 

 the combat. Like the victims of the Minotaur, they 

 bayed him from a distance, jumping left and right, with 

 an occasional advance whenever he licked the bottom of 

 his breakfast-pail, for, though he could have routed them 

 by a mere gesture, he did not think it worth his while. 

 He sat down and began to lick his paws, till we were 

 going to leave the room, when he got up and followed 

 us to the door. The moment he turned his back the 

 dogs made a dash, and one of them nabbed him from 

 behind, but in the same instant, almost, he went spinning 

 through the air and with a crash against the board of 

 the opposite wall. The bear had turned like a shot and 

 struck his assailant before a man could have lifted a stick. 

 No boxer could have parried the electric suddenness of 

 that blow, which was nevertheless delivered with the 

 force of a sledge-hammer stroke, for the cur was at least 

 a twelve-pounder, and his collision with the wall actually 

 made the windows rattle. We whistled off three of the 



