The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, page 89 by Cuthbert Bede
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of them beggars that you have to feed with spring chickens, and get up with curling tongs. Ah! they're all very well in their way, and do for women and carriage-exercise; but give ~me~ this sort of thing!" and Mr. Bouncer patted one of his villainous looking pets, who
[88 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
wagged his corkscrew tail in reply. "Now, these are beauties, and no mistake! What you call useful and ornamental; ain't you, Buzzy? The beggars are brothers; so I call them Huz and Buz:- Huz his first-born, you know, and Buz his brother."
"I should like a dog," said Verdant; "but where could I keep one?"
"Oh, anywhere!" replied Mr. Bouncer confidently. "I keep these beggars in the little shop for coal, just outside the door. It ain't the law, I know; but what's the odds as long as they're happy? ~They~ think it no end of a lark. I once had a Newfunland, and tried ~him~ there; but the obstinate brute considered it too small for him, and barked himself in such an unnatural manner, that at last he'd got no wool on the top of his head - just the place where the wool ought to grow, you know; so I swopped the beggar to a Skimmery* man for a regular slap-up set of pets of the ballet, framed and glazed, petticoats and all, mind you. But about your dog, Gig-lamps: -that cupboard there would be just the ticket; you could put him under the wine-bottles, and then there'd be wine above and whine below. ~Videsne puer~? D'ye twig, young 'un? But if you're squeamish about that, there are heaps of places in the town where you could keep a beast."
So, when our hero had been persuaded that the possession of an animal of the terrier species was absolutely necessary to a University man's existence, he had not to look about long without having the void filled up. Money will in most places procure anything, from a grant of arms to a pair of wooden legs; so it is not surprising if, in Oxford, such an every-day commodity as a dog can be obtained through the medium of "filthy lucre"; for ther