hey greet you with a bark.

We owe a debt of gratitude to these amiable enthusiasts for their
demurrers to the one-sided verdict of history and for their discoveries
of exceptional dogs and of exceptional traits in the canine character.
For are we not bidden, "if there be _any_ virtue, and if there be any
praise," to "think on these things"?

We do think of them, and we are grateful. We do not, to be sure, find
ourselves starting off incontinently to the dog-fancier's in order to
present our wife with a poodle or to transform our quiet premises into a
howling wilderness, but we think better of the world as a place to live
in, and we have a higher sense of the charity and patience of human
nature. Nevertheless, while yielding to none in my tender feeling for
dear Dr. Brown and his gentle fellow-kynophilists, I am not prepared to
obey the new commandment which this new canine gospel inculcates, "Love
me, love my dog."

Probably my personal acquaintance with the species has been unfortunate,
but I have not happened to meet with these superhuman creatures. I once
tried, in my extreme childhood, to make a pet of a Newfoundland pup of
high degree; but the little brute sickened and killed himself one day by
eating a mess of the foulest refuse. In the village where I lived there
was a crabbed little hump-backed tailor, whose house and shop were on a
corner, and with him lived a vicious yellow bull-dog. It was a question
which was the most unpopular and the most obnoxious _bete noire_ with
the villagers. We boys took a fearful delight in stealthily approaching
the little tailor's back door in the evening, and then, with a sudden
shout, taking to our heels around the corner, whereat the yellow fiend
would burst out after us, with "Bunky" close behind.

The only other dog in our village of which I have any recollection was a
great animal, facetiously known as a watch-dog, whose mission it was to
lie in wait behind the house of the man he owned, and, as soon as he
heard a step upon the gravel walk or the tinkle of the door-bell, to
dart out upon the intruder with a howl and a spring. The result was that
one day my father, the most quiet and respectable of men, in attempting
to pay a friendly visit, was set upon, knocked down, throttled, and, but
for timely rescue, would probably have fallen a victim to the habits of
this hospitable mansion. And from that day he left his friends to their
preference of companions. My own experienc