DOG. 
175 
The following story being inserted in Dibdin’s 
Observations in a Tour through England, we have 
ventured, upon his authority, to relate it, though 
at the same time we must confess our infidelity. 
At a convent in France, twenty paupers were 
served with a dinner at a certain hour every day. 
A dog belonging to the convent did not fail to be 
present at this regale, to receive the odds and ends 
which were now and then thrown down to him. 
The guests, however, were poor and hungry, and 
of course not very wasteful ; so that their pensioner 
did little more than scent the feast of which he 
would fain have partaken. The portions were 
served by a person at the ringing of a bell, and 
delivered out by means of what in religious houses 
is called a tour ; which is a machine like the section 
of a cask, that, by turning round upon a pivot, ex- 
hibits whatever is placed on the concave side, with- 
out discovering the person who moves it. One 
day, this dog, who had only received a few scraps, 
waited till the paupers were all gone, took the 
rope in his mouth, and rang the bell. His strata- 
gem succeeded. He repeated it the next day with 
the same good fortune. At length the cook, find- 
ing that twenty-one portions were given out in- 
stead of twenty, was determined to discover the 
trick ; in doing which he had no great difficulty ; 
for, lying perdu , and noticing the paupers as they 
came in great regularity for their different portions, 
and that there was no intruder except the dog, he 
