Hence, conquering my repugnance, I have decided, on my own
responsibility, to give these interesting and valuable particulars to
the world.
* * * * *
DOG-TALK.
Exactly,--Dog-Talk. And I sit down to write some of it out, in the
middle of this pleasant month of May, lest, peradventure, if I postpone
my task for a few weeks longer, I may fall in with my memories some
time in the raging days of the dog-star, when the overwhelming sense of
dog, in which, for the true working out of these memories, I must first
dip my mind, may debar me from enjoying to the fullest extent the
bounteous tap of Croton water which tinkles with such rivulet chiming
from the silver (German) faucet into the marble (wash-hand) basin with
which one side of my apartment is adorned. Hydrophobia is one thing,
and hydrophobiaephobia is another.
Although but the mid-time of May, as I have said, the thermometer is
reported at something not far short of eighty degrees, and that in as
much shade as can possibly be had in the street in which I write, which
is a brick street of New York, with one catalpa-tree in it,--a poor,
vegetable fakir, standing on his one leg at a distance of about three
blocks from "our corner," and sprawling out all round with his
shrivelled hands, as if to catch the passing robe of some rambling
breath of fresh air.
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