In Regent Street, of all places, one bright winter morning. I caught sight of a dog lying on the pavement close to the wall, hungrily gnawing at a big beef bone which he had stolen or picked out of a neighbouring dust-hole. He was a miserable looking object, a sort of lurcher, of a dirty red colour, with ribs showing like the bars of a gridiron through his mangy side. Even in those pre-muzzling days, when we still had the Pariah, it was a little strange to see him gnawing his bone at that spot, just by Peter Robinson's, where the broad pavement was full of shopping ladies; and I stood still to watch him. Presently a small red dog came trotting along the pavement from the direction of the Circus, and catching sight of the mangy lurcher with the bone he was instantly struck motionless, and crouching low as if to make a dash at the other, his tail stiff, his hair bristling, he continued gazing for some moments; and then, just when I thought the rush and struggle was about to take place, up jumped this little red cur and rushed back towards the Circus, uttering a succession of excited shrieky barks. The contagion was irresistible. Off went the incher, furously barking too, and quickly overtaking the small dog dashed on and away to the middle of the Circus to see what all: the noise was about. It was something tremendously important to does in general, no doubt. But the little red dog, the little liar, had no sooner been overtaken and passed by thesother, than back he ran, -and picking up' the bone, made off with: it in the opposite direction. poured astonished and puzzled at the dle: Very soon the: lurcher returtiéd' and
appearance of his bone.. There I' left life, still lodiittg for it and sniffing at the' open "shop, foots. He perhaps thought in his simaplieity that some kind lady had picked it up ang left it with one of; the shopmen' to be "claimed by its rightful owner:
{had heard of such actions on the part oft dogs before, but always with a smile; for we know'the people who tell -this Kind of story—the dog-worshippers, or canophilists as they are sometimes called, people weak in their intellectuals, and as a rule unveracious, although probably not consciously so. But now I had myself witnessed this thing, which, when read, will perhaps cause others to smile in their turn, But what is one to say of such an action? Just now. we are all of us, philosophers included, in a muddle over the questions of mind and intellect in the lower animals, and just how much of each element goes to the composition of any one act; but probably most persons would say at once that the action of the little red dog in Regent Street was pure-intelligent. I am not sure, The swiftness, smoothness, and certainty with which the whole thing was carried out gave it the appearaMée of a series of automatic movements rather than a reasoned act which had never been rehearsed, Recently during my country rambles T have been on the look-out for the small red dog, and have met with several interesting examples in the southern counties. One, in Hampshire, moved me to laughter ike that small animal at Charterhouse Hinton.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.