trying to say, 'Buy me! buy me! buy me! and let me go for a walk
with you; oh, do buy me, and buy my poor brothers too! Do! do!
do!' They almost said, 'Do! do! do!' plain to the ear, as they
whined; all but one big Irish terrier, and he growled when Jane
patted him.

'Grrrrr,' he seemed to say, as he looked at them from the back
corner of his eye--'YOU won't buy me. Nobody will--ever--I shall
die chained up--and I don't know that I care how soon it is,
either!'

I don't know that the children would have understood all this,
only once they had been in a besieged castle, so they knew how
hateful it is to be kept in when you want to get out.

Of course they could not buy any of the dogs. They did, indeed,
ask the price of the very, very smallest, and it was sixty-five
pounds--but that was because it was a Japanese toy spaniel like
the Queen once had her portrait painted with, when she was only
Princess of Wales. But the children thought, if the smallest was
all that money, the biggest would run into thousands--so they
went on.

And they did not stop at any more cat or dog or bird shops, but
passed them by, and at last they came to a shop that seemed as
though it only sold creatures that did not much mind where they
were--such as goldfish and white mice, and sea-anemones and other
aquarium beasts, and lizards and toads, and hedgehogs and
tortoises, and tame rabbits and guinea-pigs. And there they
stopped for a long time, and fed the guinea-pigs with bits of