I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so, though in varying degrees.  It is hard to follow their snobbery among themselves; for though I think we can perceive distinctions of rank, we cannot grasp what is the criterion.  Thus in Edinburgh, in a good part of the town, there were several distinct societies or clubs that met in the morning to—­the phrase is technical—­to “rake the backets"[21] in a troop.  A friend of mine, the master of three dogs, was one day surprised to observe that they had left one club and joined another; but whether it was a rise or a fall, and the result of an invitation or an expulsion, was more than he could guess.  And this illustrates pointedly our ignorance of the real life of dogs, their social ambitions and their social hierarchies.  At least, in their dealings with men they are not only conscious of sex, but of the difference of station.  And that in the most snobbish manner; for the poor man’s dog is not offended by the notice of the rich, and keeps all his ugly feeling for those poorer or more ragged than his master.  And again, for every station they have an ideal of behaviour, to which the master, under pain of derogation, will do wisely to conform.  How often has not a cold glance of an eye informed me that my dog was disappointed; and how much more gladly would he not have taken a beating than to be thus wounded in the seat of piety!

I knew one disrespectable dog.  He was far liker a cat; cared little or nothing for men, with whom he merely coexisted as we do with cattle, and was entirely devoted to the art of poaching.  A house would not hold him, and to live in a town was what he refused.  He led, I believe, a life of troubled but genuine pleasure, and perished beyond all question in a trap.  But this was an exception, a marked reversion to the ancestral type; like the hairy human infant.  The true dog of the nineteenth century, to judge by the remainder of my fairly large acquaintance, is in love with respectability.  A street-dog was once adopted by a lady.  While still an Arab, he had done as Arabs do, gambolling in the mud, charging into butchers’ stalls, a cat-hunter, a sturdy beggar, a common rogue and vagabond; but with his rise into society he laid aside these inconsistent pleasures.  He stole no more, he hunted no more cats; and conscious of his collar he ignored his old companions.  Yet the canine upper class was never brought to recognize the upstart, and from that hour, except for human countenance, he was alone.  Friendless, shorn of his sports and the habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory of happiness, content with his acquired respectability, and with no care but to support it solemnly.  Are we to condemn or praise this self-made dog!  We praise his human brother.  And thus to conquer vicious habits is as rare with dogs as with men.  With the more part, for all their scruple-mongering and moral thought, the vices that are born with them remain invincible throughout; and they live all their