The Alsatian's Defence " Y OU seem to be very unpopular,
my friend,- I said to the Alsatian, who was looking, I thought, rather disconsolately across the square. As lie turned his gaze from left to right and back again, lie certainly did not seem to suit his surroundings. His cars, the first thing that struck one, were much too bold. They stood up very fine and large with a regal disdain, and seemed as if they offered a challenge to an unfriendly world. He looked at me just as though he belonged to an older civilization, or perhaps I ought to say to no particular civilization, only to something dignified and noble. If men resemble animals, as all painters will tell you, then. the figure I saw before me reminded Inc of Charles I as painted by Van Dyck.
I heard him sigh. Some ignorant people do not believe that dogs can sigh, any more than that they can laugh. But that is only because they don't know anything about dogs or realize what sort of life they lead. " I wonder what your life is," I said, stroking his head—a movement which he gently deprecated, and which made- him shake his ears. "I beg your pardon," I went on ; " I forgot for the moment that you are sensitive and do not enjoy being petted:" That is another thing which people do not understand. They don't know that there are times and seasons when a dog desires above all things to be left alone, and shrinks from a human touch. It is a similar mistake that men make about children. Some people seem to imagine that every child wants. to be kissed, whereas nearly all children would much rather be left alone—unless, of course, they have already established some kind of friendship with the visitor. I cannot bear to see an elderly man chaffing a child. The child does not under- stand chaff, but does understand that in some way it is being exploited and scored off, and .resents the implication that it belongs to all inferior order of being. But to return to our Alsatian. " You want to know why I am unpopular ? " he said. " Well, let us see. In the first place, I have a temper, and a temper is very necessary and valuable in the country where I come from. The Blue Alsatian Mountains are not the most peaceful places in the world, and I and my kind have on many occasions to show and use our teeth. Them are wolves in the Vosges. In the next place, people art' apt to lump together all Alsatians, as if they i‘"ere i exactly alike. You would think me very foolish if I were to class together all the children of a family a' being identical in nature, character and temperament, wouldn't you ? I assented. " You mean;" I said, "that some children take after the father and some after the mother ; there may be a general likeness, but also there are individual differences."
" You have hit it exactly," said the A&atian. " Well now, the dog who takes after the sire has the ruder characteristics "—I smiled over the word " ruder "- "while the dog that is its mother's child is relatively inure submissive and amenable. Take as example the case of the Pekinese. The male is very courageous and sometimes almost fierce, whereas the bitch is tame and ldndly ; and yet they both came from the same litter. You see the application of this ?
" Yes," I said ; " the male Alsatian differs from the emote in temperament. The female may accept caresses, the male clog does not always, though he makes exceptions —as you have made in my case," I added.
" Oh, I have my bad moods."
" As we all have," I said ; " but civilization helps us to keep them in check." " And there is another thing," said my friend, with Lis wistful eyes fixed on mine.
" What is that ? " I asked.
" Well, I speak only with reluctance, because there arc so few people who understand. But neither you nor anyone else will ever understand dog nature until you realize that dogs lead an inner life."
" What, all of them ? " - " No, but all dogs that matter. How did it happen that dogs so quickly and so thoroughly joined them- wives to man and deserted their own kith and kin ? It is because they understood that men were not only sniivals, but added to the animal nature some higher - 'istinets. And so dogs set themselves to study man, and eventually they realized his inner life. Do you understand ? " said the Alsatian, looking at me with affectionate glance and offering me a paw as a token 1friendship. " Also, bethink you that I am a stranger your land and that I occasionally suffer from home- iekness. Does this help you to forgive me, when I behave badly ? "
" Tell me,"• I rejoined, " about the inner life you mitioned just now. What is the dog's inner life ? "
" It is difficult to put it into words," he replied ; 'hut perhaps you may have seen a dog's strange mobility before a fire. Without any warning he goes M into a kind of trance, as if his thoughts were else- His eyes are fixed with an unwinking stare, he s quite motionless and rigid, and it is an obvious effort 0 conic back again into the ordinary world, especially his sympathetic master lets him alone to finish his ream. Some people say we have a soul. I don't Snow what it is, and I have no words to explain it, but I am sure that friendships between man and dog • W. L. COURTNEY.
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