56 DOGS 



grip hold of a lot of yellow hair, and Damon would go 

 dashing along roaring with laughter, hardly knowing that 

 he was there. Could an elderly gentleman with an iron- 

 grey beard and a name for prowess in battle be expected to 

 stand this? The end came in a strange fashion. Among 

 Pat's oddities is a habit he has of licking the chops of any 

 friend or neighbour if haply there may be some rich 

 remains of a stolen mutton-bone. The spirit is that of the old 

 woman with the jar of Falerian, but the gain seems more 

 tangible. Anyhow, he often does it to Damon, and on one 

 occasion the latter, becoming restive, began to move away, 

 when Pat bit him sharply on the tender and hairless jowl. 

 Damon, formerly imperious, confessed this home-thrust 

 by a whimper, and from that day to this Pat has known 

 how to subdue him. True, at the beginning of a walk he 

 can still bark and scamper across the cricket-field , but that 

 is only because Pat is too short in the leg to keep up. 

 Damon is a cowed and submissive beast now. Oft-times he 

 lies on the lawn nescio quid meditans nugarum et totus in 

 illis when Pat, thinking times are slow, conjures up a 

 whole " Iliad " of fiction, and assumes the unhappy collie 

 is a dangerous character requiring repression. So he utters 

 the most sinister warnings to him from twenty yards 

 away, and, looking in the opposite direction, spurning the 

 grass with his hind legs, with his tail cocked till it lies 

 stiffly along his backbone. Ingentes animas angusto in 

 pectore versat. Or he will patrol round and round his 

 victim, tyrannizing disgracefully and glancing askance to 

 see if human beings are observing him. Then in two 

 minutes he will be perfectly friendly for the rest of the 

 afternoon. It is all sham, but it adds a great zest to life, 

 and that is the grand object of this fine actor and prince of 

 bullies, as, indeed, it is to many another controversialist 

 better known in the wider world. 



E. LYTTELTON. 



September 1, 1900. 



