The crowd laugh; they make way for the blind man's black dog. They
suspect, from the clown's address, that the blind man has something to do
with the company.

You never saw two uglier specimens of their several species than the
blind man and his black dog. He had rough red hair and a red beard, his
face had a sort of twist that made every feature seem crooked. His eyes
were not bandaged, but the lids were closed, and he lifted them up
piteously as if seeking for light. He did not seem, however, like a
common beggar: had rather the appearance of a reduced sailor. Yes, you
would have bet ten to one he had been a sailor; not that his dress
belonged to that noble calling, but his build, the roll of his walk, the
tie of his cravat, a blue anchor tattooed on that great brown hand:
certainly a sailor; a British tar! poor man.

The dog was hideous enough to have been exhibited as a /lusus naturae/;
evidently very aged,--for its face and ears were gray, the rest of it a
rusty reddish black; it had immensely long ears, pricked up like horns;
it was a dog that must have been brought from foreign parts; it might
have come from Acheron, sire by Cerberus, so portentous, and (if not
irreverent the epithet) so infernal was its aspect, with that gray face,
those antlered ears, and its ineffably weird demeanour altogether. A big
dog, too, and evidently a strong one. All prudent folks would have made
way for a man led by that dog. Whine creaked the hurdy-gurdy, and bow-
wow all of a sudden barked the dog. Sophy stifled a cry, pressed her
hand to her breast, and such a ray of joy flashed over her face that it
would have warmed your heart for a month to have seen it.

But do you mean to say, Mr. Author, that that British tar (gallant, no
doubt, but hideous) is Gentleman Waife, or that Stygian animal the snowy-