Marcus Wilkeson, speaking for self and friends, said he had no doubt of that.  Mr. Tiffles’s ideas always possessed the merit of novelty.

“That means that they have no other merit!” returned Tiffles, laughing, “Very true of most of them, I confess all my failures.  But here is an idea which even you, skeptic as you are, will grant to be not only novel, but great.  You have all observed, gentlemen, the immense differences in dogs.  There are white, black, brown, gray, yellow (like our suggestive canine friend two doors below), tan-colored, mouse-colored, striped, and spotted dogs.  There are round dogs, square dogs, long dogs, short dogs, tall dogs, and low dogs.  There are full-grown dogs that weigh less than a pound, and others that kick the beam at a hundred pounds.  There are dogs that are pretty much all tail, and there are dogs that have no tail to speak of.  Among all the dogs that you meet in the street, do you ever see two exactly alike?”

Fayette Overtop, who spoke from extensive and minute observation, unhesitatingly said “No.”

“True!  Nature never repeats herself in dogs.  In so doing, Nature works directly for my benefit, as I will show you.  Now, in the second place, as you are probably aware, there is an ordinance forbidding unmuzzled dogs to run in the streets during the hot months—­”

“An excellent law,” interrupted Overtop.

“If caught at large without muzzles, they are taken to the public pound, and, unless redeemed by the owners within twenty-four hours, are drowned in a tub—­”

“Serve ’em right,” remarked the hydrophobiac bachelor.

“Now, I am slightly acquainted with some members of the Common Council” (he laid emphasis on the word “slightly,” to imply that he was on terms of the closest intimacy with them), “and can easily obtain from them the privilege of catching all the stray dogs, and taking them out of the country next summer.”

“Which would be very benevolent to the dogs; and, regarded from their point of view, your idea is a noble one,” thoughtfully observed Marcus Wilkeson.  “But I don’t, at this moment, exactly see how you are benefited by it.”

Mr. Tiffles smiled with the consciousness of power, and chidingly said: 

“You are dull this morning, Mark—­quite dull.  Strike, but hear!  In a word, then, I propose to exhibit two or three hundred of these dogs, in some country where there are no dogs.  I would give them strange names, put them in cages, and call them the ’American Menagerie of Trained Animals.’  A person who had never seen dogs, would suppose each one to be a different species from the others—­just as the lion, the tiger, and the leopard are different, though all belonging to the one cat family.  Now, there is my idea.  What do you think of it?  Of course, you laugh, at first.”

Roars of laughter from the three bachelors had formed the chorus of “Wesley Tiffles’s closing sentences.  Marcus Wilkeson, as became his age, was the first to recover himself.