the blindest--the thing had ever stood in need
of proof. There is nothing much more fatal to the apprehension of a fact
than the constant causeless repetition of it. And then the tales of
the intelligence of dogs are told as a general thing with a sort of
wide-eyed wonder, so that the dog's very advocates contrive to impress
their readers with the belief that their commonplace bit of history is
remarkable.

Of course there are clever dogs and dull dogs, just as there are
sages and idiots, but any dog who was not a fool would have known and
recognised his master's splendour and importance if he had belonged
at this epoch to Monsieur Dorn. Lil saw him sitting up there in vivid
colours, heard him shouting in a voice of authority, and saw people
answer to that voice There was not a Christian in the crowd who had a
better understanding of the situation. To see her running in and out
amongst the horses' feet, ordering the sham dragoons and hussars about
in her own language, was to know she understood the thing, and had
invested herself with some of her master's glory. Wherever she went,
in and out and about, Schwartz, with his meek spikes raging in all
directions, followed, close at heel. Almost everybody has seen the loud
aggressive swaggering boy with the meek admiring small boy in his train.
The small boy glorifies the other in his mind, setting him on a level
with Three-Fingered Jack, or Goliath's conqueror, and the aggressive
boy, feeling rather than understanding the other's reverence, does his
best to look as if he deserved it. To see Lil swagger and to hear her
bark, and to see the foolish humble Schwartz follow her, admiring her,
believing in her, utterly borne away by her insolent pretence that the
whole show was got up by her orders--to observe this was to see one half
the world in little.

On other days Lil was as other dogs, except, perhaps, to the
love-blinded eyes of Schwartz, but on Sundays, so long as the drills
for the procession lasted, the field was all her own. One or two of
her companions, carried away by her example, dared to run amongst
the horses' feet and bark. They were promptly kicked into the ring of
spectators, and Lil was left alone in her glory. Of course it all went
with his own confiding nature, and the state of complete slavery in
which he lived, to persuade Schwartz of her greatness. She deserves at
least that one truth should be admitted. She never gave her admirer
the least encourageme