began to enjoy the diversion; subsided to his stomach with the beetle

between his paws, and continued his experiments; grew weary at last,

and then indifferent and absent-minded. His head nodded, and little by

little his chin descended and touched the enemy, who seized it. There

was a sharp yelp, a flirt of the poodle's head, and the beetle fell a

couple of yards away, and lit on its back once more. The neighboring

spectators shook with a gentle inward joy, several faces went behind

fans and handkerchiefs, and Tom was entirely happy. The dog looked

foolish, and probably felt so; but there was resentment in his heart,

too, and a craving for revenge. So he went to the beetle and began a

wary attack on it again; jumping at it from every point of a circle,

lighting with his fore-paws within an inch of the creature, making even

closer snatches at it with his teeth, and jerking his head till his

ears flapped again. But he grew tired once more, after a while; tried

to amuse himself with a fly but found no relief; followed an ant

around, with his nose close to the floor, and quickly wearied of that;

yawned, sighed, forgot the beetle entirely, and sat down on it. Then

there was a wild yelp of agony and the poodle went sailing up the

aisle; the yelps continued, and so did the dog; he crossed the house in

front of the altar; he flew down the other aisle; he crossed before the

doors; he clamored up the home-stretch; his anguish grew with his

progress, till presently he was but a woolly comet moving in its orbit

with the gleam and the speed of light. At last the frantic sufferer

sheered from its course, and sprang into its master's lap; he flung it

out of the window, and the voice of distress quickly thinned away and

died in the distance.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer