There was nothing now to prevent my getting
down from my elevation, and I did so. What it was that Pompey saw so
very peculiar in my appearance I have never yet been able to find out.
The fellow opened his mouth from ear to ear, and shut his two eyes
as if he were endeavoring to crack nuts between the lids. Finally,
throwing off his overcoat, he made one spring for the staircase and
disappeared. I hurled after the scoundrel these vehement words of
Demosthenes-
Andrew O'Phlegethon, you really make haste to fly,
and then turned to the darling of my heart, to the one-eyed! the
shaggy-haired Diana. Alas! what a horrible vision affronted my eyes?
Was that a rat I saw skulking into his hole? Are these the picked
bones of the little angel who has been cruelly devoured by the
monster? Ye gods! and what do I behold- is that the departed spirit,
the shade, the ghost, of my beloved puppy, which I perceive sitting
with a grace so melancholy, in the corner? Hearken! for she speaks,
and, heavens! it is in the German of Schiller-
"Unt stubby duk, so stubby dun
Duk she! duk she!"
Alas! and are not her words too true?
"And if I died, at least I died
For thee- for thee."
Sweet creature! she too has sacrificed herself in my behalf.
Dogless, niggerless, headless, what now remains for the unhappy
Signora Psyche Zenobia? Alas- nothing! I have done.
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