On the contrary,
his exceptional plainness had passed into a local proverb; and such
was the inbred coarseness of his demeanour, that in the dark you might
have thought him a politician.
If you will take two very bandy-legged curs, cut one off just abaft
the shoulders, and the other immediately forward of the haunches,
rejecting the fore-part of the first and the rear portion of the
second, you will have the raw material for constructing a dog
something like Dad Petto's. You have only to effect a junction between
the accepted sections, and make the thing eat.
Had he been favoured with as many pairs of legs as a centipede,
Jerusalem would not have differed materially from either of his race;
but it was odd to see such a wealth of dog wedded to such a poverty of
leg. He was so long that the most precocious pupil of the public
schools could not have committed him to memory in a week.
It was beautiful to see Jerusalem rounding the angle of a wall, and
turning his head about to observe how the remainder of the procession
was coming on. He was once circumnavigating a small out-house, when,
catching sight of his own hinder-quarters, he flew into a terrible
rage. The sight of another dog always had this effect upon Jerusalem,
and more especially when, as in this case, he thought he could grasp
an unfair advantage.
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