He did not at all mind one’s being absorbed in other humans; he seemed to enjoy the sounds of conversation lifting round him, and to know when they were sensible.  He could not, for instance, stand actors or actresses giving readings of their parts, perceiving at once that the same had no connection with the minds and real feelings of the speakers; and, having wandered a little to show his disapproval, he would go to the door and stare at it till it opened and let him out.  Once or twice, it is true, when an actor of large voice was declaiming an emotional passage, he so far relented as to go up to him and pant in his face.  Music, too, made him restless, inclined to sigh, and to ask questions.  Sometimes, at its first sound, he would cross to the window and remain there looking for Her.  At others, he would simply go and lie on the loud pedal, and we never could tell whether it was from sentiment, or because he thought that in this way he heard less.  At one special Nocturne of Chopin’s he always whimpered.  He was, indeed, of rather Polish temperament—­very gay when he was gay, dark and brooding when he was not.

On the whole, perhaps his life was uneventful for so far-travelling a dog, though it held its moments of eccentricity, as when he leaped through the window of a four-wheeler into Kensington, or sat on a Dartmoor adder.  But that was fortunately of a Sunday afternoon—­when adder and all were torpid, so nothing happened, till a friend, who was following, lifted him off the creature with his large boot.

If only one could have known more of his private life—­more of his relations with his own kind!  I fancy he was always rather a dark dog to them, having so many thoughts about us that he could not share with any one, and being naturally fastidious, except with ladies, for whom he had a chivalrous and catholic taste, so that they often turned and snapped at him.  He had, however, but one lasting love affair, for a liver-coloured lass of our village, not quite of his own caste, but a wholesome if somewhat elderly girl, with loving and sphinx-like eyes.  Their children, alas, were not for this world, and soon departed.

Nor was he a fighting dog; but once attacked, he lacked a sense of values, being unable to distinguish between dogs that he could beat and dogs with whom he had “no earthly.”  It was, in fact, as well to interfere at once, especially in the matter of retrievers, for he never forgot having in his youth been attacked by a retriever from behind.  No, he never forgot, and never forgave, an enemy.  Only a month before that day of which I cannot speak, being very old and ill, he engaged an Irish terrier on whose impudence he had long had his eye, and routed him.  And how a battle cheered his spirit!  He was certainly no Christian; but, allowing for essential dog, he was very much a gentleman.  And I do think that most of us who live on this earth these days would rather leave it with that label on