I didn't dare switch on the
light in the _wagon-lit_ and peep at my pocket-book mirror (which
reflects one's features in sections of a square inch, giving the survey
of one's whole face quite a panorama effect) for fear I might wake up
the Bull Dog.
I've spelt him with capitals, after mature deliberation, because it
would be nothing less than _lese majeste_ to fob him off with little
letters about the size of his two lower eye-tusks, or chin-molars, or
whatever one ought to call them.
He was on the floor, you see, keeping guard over his mistress's shoes;
and he might have been misguided enough to think I had designs on
them--though what I could have used them for, unless I'd been going to
Venice and wanting a private team of gondolas, I can't imagine.
I being in the upper berth, you might (if you hadn't seen him) have
fancied me safe; but already he had once padded half-way up the
step-ladder, and sniffed at me speculatively, as if I were a piece of
meat on the top shelf of a larder; and if half-way up, why not all the
way up? _Il etait capable du tout._
I tried to distract my mind and focus it hard on other things, as
Christian Scientists tell you to do when you have a pin sticking into
your body for which _les convenances_ forbid you to make an exhaustive
search.
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