‘That is an old joke of Hansen’s,’ explained the merchant.  ’He has re-christened the Northern Athens the Northern Constantinople, because he thinks there are too many dogs.’

‘It is good for the dog-tax,’ said some one.

‘Yes, if the dog-tax were not so inequitably fixed,’ snapped Dr. Hansen.  ’There is really no sense in a respectable old lady, who keeps a dog in a hand-bag, having to pay as much as a man who takes pleasure in annoying his fellow-creatures by owning a half-wild animal as big as a little lion.’

‘May I ask how you would have the dog-tax reckoned, Dr. Hansen?’

‘According to weight, of course,’ replied Dr. Viggo Hansen without hesitation.

The old merchants and councillors laughed so heartily at this idea of weighing the dogs, that the disputants at the lower end of the table, who were still vigorously bombarding each other with unalterable opinions, became attentive and dropped their opinions, in order to listen to the discussion on dogs.  And the question, ’Can one call a lady a fine lady—­a really fine lady—­if it be known that on a steamboat she has put her feet up on a stool, and disclosed small shoes and embroidered stockings?’ also floated away in the air, unsolved.

‘You seem to be a downright hater of dogs, Dr. Hansen!’ said the lady next to him, still laughing.

‘I must tell you, madam,’ cried a gentleman across the table, ’that he is terribly afraid of dogs.’

‘But one thing,’ continued the lady—­’one thing you must admit, and that is, that the dog has always been the faithful companion of man.’

’Yes, that is true, madam, and I could tell you what the dog has learned from man, and man from the dog.’

‘Tell us; do tell us!’ was simultaneously exclaimed from several quarters.

‘With pleasure.  In the first place, man has taught the dog to fawn.’

‘What a very queer thing to say!’ cried old grandmother.

’Next, the dog has acquired all the qualities that make man base and unreliable:  cringing flattery upward, and rudeness and contempt downward; the narrowest adhesion to his own, and distrust and hatred of all else.  Indeed, the noble animal has proved such an apt pupil that he even understands the purely human art of judging people by their clothes.  He lets well-dressed folks alone, but snaps at the legs of the ragged.’

Here the doctor was interrupted by a general chorus of disapproval, and Miss Thyra bitterly gripped the fruit-knife in her little hand.

But there were some who wanted to hear what mankind had learned from the dog, and Dr. Hansen proceeded, with steadily-growing passion and bitterness: 

’Man has learned from the dog to set a high price upon this grovelling, unmerited worship.  When neither injustice nor ill-treatment has ever met anything but this perpetually wagging tail, stomach upon earth, and licking tongue, the final result is that the master fancies himself a splendid fellow, to whom all this devotion belongs as a right.  And, transferring his experience of the dog into his human intercourse, he puts little restraint upon himself, expecting to meet wagging tails and licking tongues.  And if he be disappointed, then he despises mankind and turns, with loud-mouthed eulogies, to the dog.’