iQo DOGS 



of his family, has nothing to do with my moral, for 

 Tickler had a very unusual piece of luck. It was 

 more likely that, like Uncle Tom of ^* Uncle Tom's 

 Cabin" — another book you ought to read — he 

 would have been sold into slavery, and changed a 

 kind for a careless or brutal master. And you 

 may be sure that dogs have longer memories than 

 you fancy. You have probably read the Odyssey 

 with cribs, for I take it that you are not much at 

 home in the Greek. Then you remember how 

 Ulysses' dog recognised him at once, when he had 

 been cruising for many years among the Greek 

 islands on his way back from Troy. I suspect 

 Horace was drawing the long-bow, or, to speak 

 more correctly, indulging in poetic license, when 

 he makes the dog recognise his old master at the 

 first sniff. Much more natural is Sir Walter Scott's 

 scene in ''Old Mortality," when Henry Morton 

 comes back from the Dutch wars to his home on 

 the Clyde. The old spaniel he left behind, barks 

 at the stranger, then smells round him, and finally 

 jumps up and fawns. ''The creature kens you," 

 exclaims the old housekeeper. That gradual recog- 

 nition is true to the life ; but Scott knew more 

 about dogs than Homer, and at least as much as 

 Dr. Brown. 



By the way, if any one is fool enough to laugh at 

 you for making a friend of your dog and loving 

 him, refer him to Sir Walter, and read Lockhart's 

 " Life." The most delightful writer since Shake- 

 speare, he still amuses hundreds of thousands of 



