114 Beason or Instinct, 



but if he is not watc-hed he comes in another way, hides 

 behind the advertisement boards, and at the last moment 

 jumps into the guard's van and turns up at Croydon. He 

 goes out at intervals and fights the grocer's dog, and comes 

 back on three legs and tries to carry it off with a high 

 hand, but you can always find out the truth by asking him 

 if the dog with the gooseberry eye beat him, and if such is 

 the case, he retii-es in a state of high mental depression if 

 he lost, but if he won he invites you to go out instantly 

 with an eye to renew the fight. Only a few weeks since 

 Rufus had been set on by a large savage dog and badly 

 bitten on the neck, and the dog doctor was sent for. I 

 came home and found him in the doctor's hands, with his 

 mouth tied up, and struggling hard, for dressing the 

 wound caused him a good deal of pain, and the moment he 

 saw me and I held his paw he was as patient as a Christian 

 until it was all done. This must be reason. Rufus never 

 went into the kitchen, and if the family were all out in the 

 evening, he sat alone in the drawing-room, and the gas was 

 lit for him, and if he condescended to go out with a ser- 

 vant, when he came home he went to the front door, and 

 the servant had to go round and let him in. " Point " is an 

 outside dog, and is never allowed in the house under any 

 circumstances, except on Sunday ; and on every Sunday 

 punctually at 2 o'clock he comes outside the conservatory, 

 and walks into my room, banging the furniture with his 

 great tail, and puts his honest old head on my knee. I don't 

 feed him, and he simply wants to spend the day with mc 

 and if I go out he runs and digs up a large stone some 

 where and brings it to me in the garden, and I throw it 

 over a high solid fence into the middle of a large field, 

 sometimes, I am ashamed to say, when my neighbour's 

 meadow is in grass or laid down for hay, and the grass is as 

 high as my hips. The dog has to run a hundred and fifty 



