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RAB and M. Ca dwell Co. Ne W YoM-d Boston. Rab and his Friends Rab and his Friends F OUR AND THIRTY years ago, Bob Ainslie and I were coming up Infirmary Street, from the Edinburgh High School, our heads together and our arms intertwisted, as only lovers and boys know how, or why. When we got to the top of the street, and turned north, we espied a crowd at the Tron Church. A dogfight shouted Bob, and was off and so was I, both of us all but prayi g that it might not be over before we got up And is not this boy-nature and Rab and m his Friends human nature, too and dont we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we see it Dogs like fighting old Isaac says they delight in it, , and for the best of all reasons and boys are not cruel because they like to see the fight. They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or m . a n - . courage, endurance, and skill - in intense action. This is very different from a love of making dogs fight, and enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A boy, be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run off with Bob and me fast enough it is a natural, and a not wicked interest, that all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in action. Rab and his Friends Does any curious and finely ignorant woman wish to know how Bobs eye, at a glance, announced a dog-fight to his brain He did not, he could not see the dogs fighting it was a flash of 44 an inference, a rapid induction. The crowd around a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd masculine, mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman, fluttering wildly around the outside, and using her tongue and her hands freely upon the men, as so many brutes it is a crowd annular, compact, and mobile a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its heads all bent downwards and inwards, to one common focus. a Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over a small, thoroughbred, white bull-terrier is busy throttling a U. Rab and his Friends I 7s large shepherds dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his - pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great courage. Science and breeding, however, soon had their own the Game Chicken, as the premature Bob called him, working his way up, took his final grip of poor Yarrows throat,-and he lay gasping and done for. His master, a brown, handsome, big young shepherd from Tweedsmuir, would have liked to have knocked down any man, would drink up Esil, or eat a crocodile, for thai part, if he had a chance it was no use kicking the little dog that would only make him hold the closer. Many were the Rab and his Friends means, shouted out in mouthfuls, of the best possible ways of ending it. Water but there was none near, and many cried for it who might have got it from the well at Blackfriars Wynd. Bite the tail and a large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged man, more desirous than wise, with some struggle got the bushy end of Yarrows tail into his ample mouth, and bit it with all his might. This was more than enough for the much-enduring, much-perspiring shepherd, who, with a gleam of joy over his broad visage, delivered a terrific facer upon our Large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged friend,-who went down like asshot. Still the Chicken holds death not far off. c Snuff a pinch of snuff observed a calm, highly dressed young U. Rab and 7s his Fri-ends buck, with an eye-glass in his eye. Snuff, indeed growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring. Snuff a , pinch of snuff again observes the buck, but with more urgency whereupon were produced several open boxes, and from a mull which may have been at Culloden, he took a pinch, knelt down, and presented it to the nose of the Chicken...
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