"something up." 37 



" Something's up," curtly observed Puffy. " Something's up," 

 repeated he. " I feel it all over, but particularly here," and 

 then, still holding the bunch of hair in a vice-like grasp with 

 one hand, he applied the other, with an affectionate and almost 

 caressing pressure, to just below the waistband of his drab cloth 

 breeches, which had not been removed since his entry into New- 

 market. "Particularly here," reiterated he, again making a 

 temporary indenture with the points of his fingers. 



Ay, Puffy Doddles ! Stare as you may, stare as you will, 

 stare as you do, the " something up " will beat the entire stock 

 of your philosophy. Bred and born, for aught can be said or 

 written to the contrary, a 'mathematician of no common order 

 (one, perhaps, who could give the why and wherefore on Related 

 Caustics of reflection, and the Evolute of the Lemniscata, as 

 derived from a caustic of the Hyperbola), still this " something 

 up " shall prove a problem too subtile for that knowledge, either 

 natural or acquired, which you possess of the science treating of 

 magnitude and numbers. 



It may be that Puffy Doddles arrived by either a direct or 

 circuitous route at this conclusion ; for, releasing the bunch of 

 hair from between his fingers, he allowed it to take a less con- 

 strained form, and giving himself a shake, not unlike a vigorous 

 spaniel upon emerging from a plunge in a pool, looked, if not 

 quite, yet something like himself again. 



" Come what will," said he, striding forwards and lifting the 

 warm rug from Sunshine's glossy quarters, as he gave him his 

 practical morning greeting by the hearty smack of the flattened 

 palm of a hand — " Come what will," repeated he, " we'll hope 

 for the best, won't we, old feller ?" 



"Old feller" threw back both ears, and lifted the near 

 hind leg in an attitude of the most threatening description. 



" That might do well enough for a novice," coolly resumed 

 Sunshine's attendant, "but it won't do for me;" and again ad- 

 ministering the practical greeting, dropped the corner of the 

 rug over his sleek quarters, and proceeded to remove that 

 medium of a compulsory abstinence — the " setting muzzle." 



