"You would kill
a poor cat, you infernal coward. You would fly at a starving
beggar, you infernal coward. Anything that you can surprise
unawares--anything that is afraid of your big body, and your
wicked white teeth, and your slobbering, bloodthirsty mouth, is
the thing you like to fly at. You could throttle me at this
moment, you mean, miserable bully, and you daren't so much as look
me in the face, because I'm not afraid of you. Will you think
better of it, and try your teeth in my fat neck? Bah! not you!" He
turned away, laughing at the astonishment of the men in the yard,
and the dog crept back meekly to his kennel. "Ah! my nice
waistcoat!" he said pathetically. "I am sorry I came here. Some
of that brute's slobber has got on my pretty clean waistcoat."
Those words express another of his incomprehensible oddities. He
is as fond of fine clothes as the veriest fool in existence, and
has appeared in four magnificent waistcoats already--all of light
garish colours, and all immensely large even for him--in the two
days of his residence at Blackwater Park.
His tact and cleverness in small things are quite as noticeable as
the singular inconsistencies in his character, and the childish
triviality of his ordinary tastes and pursuits.
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