His great spree was
to run amuck into a flock of small children coming out of school. If
there was a dirty crossing hard by, over which they had to pass, he
would wait until they had got half-way, and then, going through them
like a rocket, would chuck them down into the mud, right and left, as
he sped, keeping straight on in his career until far beyond range of
pedagogue's rod. His trick of making a sudden rush at the heels of
unsuspecting persons--and he invariably selected the right sort for his
purpose--might often have got me into ugly scrapes, but for the tact
with which he invariably ignored his master on such occasions. If
pursued, he never came near me for protection, but fled wildly on,
assuming the character of a dog "on the loose," belonging to nobody in
particular, and quite able to take care of himself. He had a decided
objection to street industrials in general, including Italian
organ-grinders and image-sellers. Once I saw him crouching stealthily
after one of the latter, who was passing through an open square with a
tray of casts upon his head; and before I could get up a whistle or
call him off by name, he had darted like a javelin at the legs of the
refugee, startling him so much out of the perpendicular that the
superstructure of plastic art came to the ground with a crash,
top-dressing the sterile soil of the Campus Martius with a coat of
manufactured plaster of Paris.
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