CHAPTER XXV 



SOME FACTS ABOUT THE NOSE 



When a dog wants to find his master, his nose is 

 often quite as useful as his legs. He puts it near the 

 ground and smells his master's footsteps as fast as 

 he can run. 



Bloodhounds can find a burglar in the same way, while 

 wild deer can smell their enemy a long way off if the wind 

 is blowing from that direction. If the hunter himself had 

 as keen a nose as that, I suppose it would help him in his 

 hunting, but it would make it that much harder for the 

 deer to save his life. 



In any case our nose is as useful as we need. It tells 

 us even in the dark or when our eyes are shut which flower 

 is a rose and which is a lily ; it warns us when the gas is 

 escaping and we know by it when the room is too close, 

 when there is tobacco smoke in it, and when the air is 

 impure from sewers or garbage cans or soiled things. 



Though the nose is so useful, it is not always beauti- 

 ful. It may be long and thin like a knife blade, or it 

 may be short and thick like a small club ; it may curve 

 up like a queer little handle, or it may bend down like 

 a broken-backed man ; but the shape does not change 



