Nature and Art, January 1, 1867.] 
BIZZ AND HER FOES. 
3 
“Just the sort of clog we want, that will stand 
no nonsense, want no looking after ; not all as one 
of our dogs, ma’am, that crave as much attention as 
babies ; sure if Ninon only wets her feet, she’ll come 
to me to dry ’em before she goes into the drawing- 
room ! and if an insect bothers her too much, and 
she can’t get him, by reason of his earning his bread 
on the back of her neck, or right under her chin, 
she’ll give me no rest or pace till I take down her 
comb and brush, to have a hunt for him, and she 
knows the sight of the comb as well as myself ! 
Now Bizz is altogether different from that : she’s a 
pure-blooded, smooth-coated bull-tarricr ; that’s what 
she is ; her grip is the grip of a vice, her legs are 
bandy with strength, and though she has lost one 
eye, and her ears are riddled — indeed one is as good 
as gone — through tearing by cats, rats, and things, 
she do be after day and night, in shores, and out of 
shores; known she is to all rat-catchers, that would 
give their eyes for her, and though she’ll do them a 
good turn now and agin, when they’re hard up for a 
dog, she wouldn’t, Hatchment says, call one of them 
mastei’ — not she. She wouldn’t stay here, poor Bizz, 
the baste ! only she has got a liking for me — 
Hatchment is certain of that.” 
everything else scuffled about through them but 
there, ma’am, 1 have done my duty honest, if we’re 
all robbed and murdered, its no business or fault of 
mine. I could swear the lock of the back gate, 
had a nail in it on Sunday morning : and I’d be 
glad to know how the coke-box, two trowels, and a 
blacking-brush were spirited off the bottle-rack in 
the yard. If Bizz, the baste, — but I’m done ! ” 
Whenever poor cook’s suggestions were set aside, 
she assumed an air of pathetic, yet offended dignity, 
that was highly amusing, and after the passion, 
whined out a running accompaniment. 
“ I know my place, I’m only a plain cook, roast 
and boiled (“ biled ” she pronounced it), soup, fish, 
poultry or game, bread or mint sauce, lobsters and 
crabs, and vegetables in all dressings, could under- 
take a cow and butter, feed pigs, hatch chickens, 
and cut the red heads of turkeys, agin the world ; 
I never blazens myself, I’m only a plain cook, but 
scorn baking, ever since them dirty Germans set up 
their yeast against honest barm ! I’m only a cook, 
and a woman, and know I’m of no account beyond 
my kitchen, and as clean a scullery as ever mortial 
entered ! I’d never have mentioned the dog, ma’am, 
only you have a laning towards animals, and 
There was a pause : cook returned to the charge. 
“ Talking of cats, ma’am, sure anything that 
would circumnavigate those cats, that destroy the 
garden, would be a blessing unspoken : the walls are 
as thick with cats, as an old kitchen with beetles. 
hy, the cats flick their tails and grin at our dogs : 
it’s heart-breaking, so it is, to see the voilets and 
Hatchment says, he’ll ’tice her into a bag somehow, 
and drown the poor faithful creature if you don’t 
have her.” 
“Drown Bizz!” (she had long been of my 
acquaintance, though by no means one of my dog 
friends.) “ Drown Bizz ! why, if she is so valuable, 
why drown her 1 ” 
b 2 
