According to that good old intelligible English saying, it is this morning _raining cats and dogs_. There's an end, Tickler, to our intended eighteen-mile walk (thither and back) to the lighthouse, the machinery of which I was very anxious to explain to you. _Bow, wow, wow, wow!_ indeed! I know what you mean, you little sinner! You want to be after the rabbits in yonder thickets, and you mean to intimate that you can go perfectly well by yourself, don't mind the rain, and will come safely home when you have finished your sport. Don't look so earnestly at me, and whine so piteously. By the way, do you call yourself a vermin dog? and yet every hair of your shaggy coat stood on end the other day, when I turned out for you the two pennyworth of mice--_mice!_--which I had bought for you from Nick Irons? What would you have done if a RAT were to meet you? Bah, you little wretch! Where's your spirit? Refined, and refined away by breeding, eh? What would you have done if you were to be allowed to go off now, and were to rout out accidentally a hedgehog, as _Hermit_ did yesterday? You may well whine! He's five times your size, eh? But I've seen a terrier that would tackle a hedgehog, and bring him home, too--your own second cousin, Tory, poor dear dog--peace to his little ashes. Besides, to return to the rabbits--in spite of all your snuffing and smelling, and scampering, and routing about, you never turned up a rabbit yet! And even our kitten has only to rise and curve her little back, and you slink away, like an arrant coward as you are--Well!--come along, doggy! you're a good little creature, with all your faults--these black eyes of yours, with your little erect ears, look as if you had really understood all that I have been saying to you--so I really think--and yet--pour! pour! pour!--[Enter Emily.]
_Emily._--Papa, Miss ---- says that we have said _all_ our lessons, and _will_ you let us have Tickler to play with?
_Tickler._--Bow--wow--wow!--Bow, wow!--Bow! bow! bow!--[Running up and scampering towards her, and they go away together.]
_Servant._--Brown has called with some lobsters, sir--(shows them)--two very nice ones, and a small crab--only fifteenpence the lot.
_Wife._--(Entering)--Lobsters and crabs again! Really one would think that you had had a surfeit of them long ago.