A rat-terrier believes that on his home grounds he can whip an elephant.  It follows, of course, that a big dog, away from his own home, will run from a little dog in the little dog’s neighbourhood.  Otherwise, the big dog must face a charge of inconsistency, and dogs are as consistent as they are superstitious.  A dog believes in war, but he is convinced that there are times when it is moral to run; and the thoughtful physiognomist, seeing a big dog fleeing out of a little dog’s yard, must observe that the expression of the big dog’s face is more conscientious than alarmed:  it is the expression of a person performing a duty to himself.

Penrod understood these matters perfectly; he knew that the gaunt brown hound Duke chased up the alley had fled only out of deference to a custom, yet Penrod could not refrain from bragging of Duke to the hound’s owner, a fat-faced stranger of twelve or thirteen, who had wandered into the neighbourhood.

“You better keep that ole yellow dog o’ yours back,” said Penrod ominously, as he climbed the fence.  “You better catch him and hold him till I get mine inside the yard again.  Duke’s chewed up some pretty bad bulldogs around here.”

The fat-faced boy gave Penrod a fishy stare.  “You’d oughta learn him not to do that,” he said.  “It’ll make him sick.”

“What will?”

The stranger laughed raspingly and gazed up the alley, where the hound, having come to a halt, now coolly sat down, and, with an expression of roguish benevolence, patronizingly watched the tempered fury of Duke, whose assaults and barkings were becoming perfunctory.

“What’ll make Duke sick?” Penrod demanded.

“Eatin’ dead bulldogs people leave around here.”

This was not improvisation but formula, adapted from other occasions to the present encounter; nevertheless, it was new to Penrod, and he was so taken with it that resentment lost itself in admiration.  Hastily committing the gem to memory for use upon a dog-owning friend, he inquired in a sociable tone: 

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“Dan.  You better call your ole pup, ’cause Dan eats live dogs.”

Dan’s actions poorly supported his master’s assertion, for, upon Duke’s ceasing to bark, Dan rose and showed the most courteous interest in making the little, old dog’s acquaintance.  Dan had a great deal of manner, and it became plain that Duke was impressed favourably in spite of former prejudice, so that presently the two trotted amicably back to their masters and sat down with the harmonious but indifferent air of having known each other intimately for years.

They were received without comment, though both boys looked at them reflectively for a time.  It was Penrod who spoke first.

“What number you go to?” (In an “oral lesson in English,” Penrod had been instructed to put this question in another form:  “May I ask which of our public schools you attend?”)