It is not my
design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He
was a sad dog, it is true, and a dog's death it was that he died;
but he himself was not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a
personal defect in his mother. She did her best in the way of flogging
him while an infant- for duties to her well- regulated mind were
always pleasures, and babies, like tough steaks, or the modern Greek
olive trees, are invariably the better for beating- but, poor woman!
she had the misfortune to be left-handed, and a child flogged
left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The world revolves from
right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. If
each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out, it
follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of
wickedness in. I was often present at Toby's chastisements, and,
even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was
getting worse and worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in
my eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day
when he had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one
might have mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been
produced beyond that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could
stand it no longer, but went down upon my knees forthwith, and,
uplifting my voice, made prophecy of his ruin.
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