244 
THE RAT. 
ten thousand pardons, and offer any atonement that is in 
my power to make." " Then, sir," said the doctor, " have the 
kindness to give me a good stiff glass of brandy-and- water, 
to replenish my exhausted strength, and we will cry quits." 
A large tumbler of brandy-and-w^ater was instantly supplied 
him, which in one draught he as speedily disposed off ; and 
after gaping for a moment, then smacking his lips, he de- 
clared that that was good, but the next would be better ! 
The glass w^as quickly replenished, when, after putting it to 
his lips a second time, and drawing it within an inch of the 
bottom, he declared himself more composed, and somewhat 
better. " But, my dear lady," said he, pointing to the old 
rat beneath the table, " pray what is that 1 " Here the lady 
gave a most vivid and energetic description of Tiny's 
rencontre with the rats ! To have heard her denounce 
mankind as a race of cowards, and eulogise the dog's 
courage, one might have thought, that had the hearts of 
all the naval and military officers of Great Britain been 
pounded into one animal, they could not have made such a 
hero as her noble little Tiny. 
All this seemed to give the old gentleman the utmost 
satisfaction, who was looking at the whole transaction, not 
as a matter of curiosity, but with the practical eye of a 
medical man. When she had done, the husband gave a 
description of his journey for the doctor ; and then the 
doctor, to the great amusement of all, gave a practical 
description of their journey back, and after most immo- 
derate laughter on all sides, the doctor wound up the matter 
by telling the gentleman that he ought to value that dog 
above all creatures next to his wife. For in his mind there 
was not the shadow of a doubt but that the resolution of 
the little champion, at the critical moment, had so completely 
ins2)ired her with that degree of nerve and courage, which 
had so happily frustrated the awful consequences of so 
serious a fright, in her delicate and peculiar situation, and 
thereby in all probability robbed, not only the grave of a 
mother and her child, but the gentleman also of a straight- 
jacket in a lunatic asylum. 
Here let me wind up the subject of rat-killing dogs with 
two or three remarks. The fact of the lady's being, as it 
were, inspired at the moment with a kind of superhuman 
