96 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



was to show that whatever the world at large might 

 say or think, or not say or think at all, about Bog- 

 moor, it had a comfortable kind of self-opinion of its 

 own that amply outbalanced all public indifference. 

 Indeed the place was utterly chloroformed against 

 any such sensibilities, and was quite of the opposite 

 way of thinking ; reminding one of those people often 

 met with, who for some cabinet reason that never can 

 be got at, seem to view every object in life through 

 that lens by which the dilated eye of the drunkard 

 is said to make everything he meets look small. 

 As you walked or rode up its one long flat dull 

 straggling street, it was strange to remark the con- 

 trast between the street itself and the faces that met 

 you in it. How upon earth so much self-satisfaction 

 had ever been got together in so unsatisfactory a spot, 

 was the indefinite wonder that was stirred afresh in 

 the mind by every object that met one's eye. The 

 very curs popping extemporaneously out of wet narrow 

 alleys, imaged, while partaking of, the character of 

 the place, cocking up head and tail as you passed, and 

 exerting both together in one short ' Who are you ? ' 

 bark of inconceivable impudence. 



Whether in aggravation, or explanation, of the 

 whole scene one can hardly undertake to say, but 



