His movements had wakened up the dozing model.

She eyed them at first with dull curiosity, then with lively suspicion; and presently starting up with an exclamation such as no novelist but Fielding dare put into the mouth of a female,--much less a nymph of such renown as Galatea,--she sprang across the room, wellnigh upsetting easel and painter, and fastened firm hold on Gabriel's shoulders.
"The varment!" she cried vehemently; "the good-for-nothing varment! If it had been a jay, or a nasty raven, well and good; but a poor little canary!" "Hoity-toity! what are you about, nephew?
What's the matter ?" said Tom Varney, coming up to the strife.

And, indeed, it was time; for Gabriel's teeth were set in his catlike jaws, and the glowing point of the pipe-shank was within an inch of the cheek of the model.
"What's the matter ?" replied Gabriel, suddenly; "why, I was only going to try a little experiment." "An experiment?
Not on my canary, poor dear little thing! The hours and hours that creature has strained its throat to say 'Sing and be merry,' when I had not a rap in my pocket! It would have made a stone feel to hear it." "But I think I can make it sing much better than ever,--only just let me try! They say that if you put out the eyes of a canary, it--" Gabriel was not allowed to conclude his sentence; for here rose that clamour of horror and indignation from both painter and model which usually greets the announcement of every philosophical discovery,--at least, when about to be practically applied; and in the midst of the hubbub, the poor little canary, who had been fluttering about the cage to escape the hand of the benevolent operator, set up no longer the cheerful trill-trillela-la-trill, but a scared and heart-breaking chirp,--a shrill, terrified twit-twit-twitter-twit.
"Damn the bird! Hold your tongues!" cried Gabriel Varney, reluctantly giving way, but still eying the bird with the scientific regret with which the illustrious Majendie might contemplate a dog which some brute of a master refused to disembowel for the good of the colics of mankind.
The model seized on the cage, shut the door of the wires, and carried it off.

Tom Varney drained the rest of his porter, and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his coat.
"And to use my pipe for such cruelty! Boy, boy, I could not have believed it! But you were not in earnest; oh, no, impossible! Sukey, my love--Galatea the divine--calm thy breast; Cupid did but jest.
'Cupid is the God of Laughter, Quip and jest and joke, sir.'" "If you don't whip the little wretch within an inch of his life, he'll have a gallows end on't," replied Galatea.
"Go, Cupid, go and kiss Galatea, and make your peace.
`Oh, leave a kiss within the cup, And I'll not ask for wine.' And 't is no use asking for wine, or for gin either,--not a drop in the noggin!" All this while Gabriel, disdaining the recommendations held forth to him, was employed in brushing his jacket with a very mangy-looking brush; and when he had completed that operation he approached his uncle, and coolly thrust his hands into that gentleman's waistcoat-pockets.
"Uncle, what have you done with those seven shillings?
I am going out to spend the day." "If you give them to him, Tom, I'll scratch your eyes out," cried the model; "and then we'll see how you'll sing.

Whip him, I say, whip him!" But, strange to say, this liberty of the boy quite reopened the heart of his uncle,--it was a pleasure to him, who put his hands so habitually into other people's pockets, to be invested with the novel grandeur of the man sponged upon.