A retriever in my neighbourhood is just being taken off
for a few days on the Yorkshire moors. It is the custom of his master, who only escapes for what is foolishly and falsely called the week-end, to shoot on Saturday, play golf on Sunday afternoon, and shoot again on Monday. When the car appears the excitement of the dog is intense. The gun to him is almost a totem-pole, a thing to be worshipped ; but when he sees the golf bags being mobilized, his whole demean- our changes. He at once abandons the neighbourhood of the car and walks slowly back to the house with an air of depres- sion bordering on disgust. I have seen a similar change in mood in a spaniel greeting his master at breakfast time. If the legs are stockinged he is exuberant, if the suit is blue serge or its equivalent his greeting is so cold as to be barely polite. He might be a philosopher deploring the prevalence of the urban mind.
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