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Updated: October 14, 2025
"There is one thing," said I, "connected with this matter which surprises me your own lukewarmness. Yes, making every allowance for your natural predilection for dog-fighting, and your present enamoured state of mind, your apathy at the commencement of such a movement is to me unaccountable."
I commended him for his resolution, at the same time advising him not to give up his mind entirely to dog-fighting, as he had formerly done, but, when the present combat should be over, to return to his rhetorical studies, and above all to marry some rich and handsome lady on the first opportunity, as, with his person and expectations, he had only to sue for the hand of the daughter of a marquis to be successful, telling him, with a sigh, that all women were not Annettes, and that, upon the whole, there was nothing like them.
The Saturday combats are not so violent, and the dog-fighting is a thing of the past; but the men are like their forefathers in habits and speech. The keelman has many points in common with the pitman. He is more ignorant, because his life on the water begins very early and he is isolated for the better part of every week; so he is very simple and innocent of the world's ways.
They say that light fare begets light dreams; my fare at that time was light enough, but I had anything but light dreams, for at that period I had all kind of strange and extravagant dreams, and amongst other things I dreamt that the whole world had taken to dog-fighting; and that I, myself, had taken to dog-fighting, and that in a vast circus I backed an English bulldog against the bloodhound of the Pope of Rome.
When I talks of dog-fighting, I of course means rat-catching, and badger-baiting, ay, and bull-baiting too, just as when I speaks religiously, when I says one I means not one but three. And talking of religion puts me in mind that I have something else to do besides chaffing here, having a batch of dogs to send off by this night's packet to the Pope of Rome.
He arrived one morning at Diana's lodgings, with a soldier to lead him, and a card to introduce: the Hercules of dogs, a very ideal of the species, toweringly big, benevolent, reputed a rescuer of lives, disdainful of dog-fighting, devoted to his guardian's office, with a majestic paw to give and the noblest satisfaction in receiving caresses ever expressed by mortal male enfolded about the head, kissed, patted, hugged, snuggled, informed that he was his new mistress's one love and darling.
Larkin grinned. Rarely did they go into the air together but what they engaged in mimic warfare dog-fighting before their wheels again touched the ground. It was the airman's game of tag, the winner being that one who could get on the other's tail and stay there.
I had expended much more than my loose money long before I could procure materials even for the first volume of my compilation. Francis Ardry Certain sharpers Brave and eloquent Opposites Flinging the bones Strange places Dog-fighting Learning and letters Batch of dogs Redoubled application.
Scarcely knowing what to say, I made an observation at random. ‘You show, by your own conduct,’ said I, ‘that there are other things worth following besides dog-fighting. You practise rat-catching and badger-baiting as well.’ The dog-fancier eyed me with supreme contempt. ‘Your friend here,’ said he, ‘might well call you a new one.
To my mind these coursing massacres should be made every whit as illegal as dog-fighting or bull-baiting, for I can assure our legislators that the temptation offered by the chances of rapid gambling is eating like a corrosive poison into the young generation. Surely Englishmen, even if they want to bet, need not invent a medium for betting which combines every description of noxious cruelty!
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