Onions, Shallots and Garlic

They, the alms man’s family, had a dog with doggish ears and dogteeth. Her name was Darien and she slept in the woolshed next to his brother’s firemen’s wagon. Darien ate biscuits and bone teething rings and rawhide and grass. His brother pulled her round in his firemen’s wagon, saying to anyone who would listen ‘my dog has no fleas, none at all.’ Most people simply ignored him, but some, those with small children in prams, would shoo at him, scurrying past, they’re children wailing and peeing and snorting like pigs. When the alms man told the man in the hat about they’re dog, the man in the hat asked ‘did she have floppy ears or straight ears or no ears or one ear?’ To which the alms man replied ‘doggish ears, and two of them’. ‘Did your dog eat its own feces?’ he asked. ‘Yes, and other’s, too,’ replied the alms man, ‘poodles and schnauzers and wiener-dogs, some big some small, some shaggy some hairless, others with black splotches or white and black and white.’ ‘We had a Beowulf’ said the man in the hat, ‘with such long fur you couldn’t see its eyes for the life of you.’ The alms man readjusted his eyeglasses and cleared his throat, then spoke in a low even tone, saying ‘Darien was run over by a car, got all caught up under the wheels, head all twisted and curled up like a fist.’ ‘Did you eat her, I mean now that she was dead and run over and all?’ asked the man in the hat. ‘No, but my brother gave it some thought, wanted to make a Beef Wellington out of her.’ ‘Onions and shallots and garlic’, I hope, said the man in the hat, ‘and a rue made from butter, flour and pigs’ knuckles’.