Many an author has got a drop of printers’ ink spattered in his eye, and collapsed.  The critic who had lobsters for supper the night before, and whose wife in the morning had parted his hair on the wrong side, snarled at the new book, and the time that the author might have spent in new work he squanders in gunning for critics.  You might better have gone straight ahead, Nick!  You will come to be estimated for exactly what you are worth.  If a fool, no amount of newspaper or magazine puffery can set you up; and if you are useful, no amount of newspaper or magazine detraction can keep you down.  For every position there are twenty aspirants; only one man can get it; forthwith the other nineteen are on the offensive.  People are silly enough to think that they can build themselves up with the bricks they pull out of your wall.  Pass on and leave them.  What a waste of powder for a hunter to go into the woods to shoot black flies, or for a man of great work to notice infinitesimal assault!  My Newfoundland would scorn to be seen making a drive at a black-and-tan terrier.

But one day, on my walk with Nick, we had an awful time.  We were coming in at great speed, much of the time on a brisk run, my mind full of white clover tops and the balm that exudes from the woods in full leafage, when, passing the commons, we saw a dog fight in which there mingled a Newfoundland as large as Nick, a blood-hound and a pointer.  They had been interlocked for some time in terrific combat.  They had gnashed upon and torn each other until there was getting to be a great scarcity of ears, and eyes and tails.

Nick’s head was up, but I advised him that he had better keep out of that canine misunderstanding.  But he gave one look, as much as to say, “Here at last is an occasion worthy of me,” and at that dashed into the fray.  There had been no order in the fight before, but as Nick entered they all pitched at him.  They took him fore, and aft, and midships.  It was a greater undertaking than he had anticipated.  He shook, and bit, and hauled, and howled.  He wanted to get out of the fight, but found that more difficult than to get in.

Now, if there is anything I like, it is fair play.  I said, “Count me in!” and with stick and other missiles I came in like Blucher at nightfall.  Nick saw me and plucked up courage, and we gave it to them right and left, till our opponents went scampering down the hill, and I laid down the weapons of conflict and resumed my profession as a minister, and gave the mortified dog some good advice on keeping out of scrapes, which homily had its proper effect, for with head down and penitent look, he jogged back with me to the city.

Lesson for dogs and men:  Keep out of fights.  If you see a church contest, or a company of unsanctified females overhauling each other’s good name until there is nothing left of them but a broken hoop skirt and one curl of back hair, you had better stand clear.  Once go in, and your own character will be an invitation to their muzzles.  Nick’s long, clean ear was a temptation to all the teeth.  You will have enough battles of your own, without getting a loan of conflicts at twenty per cent a month.