Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/92

80, lady and lout, indifferently. Nay, by an ironical law of olfaction the fœtors are more : powerful than the fragrances, and vervain the feeble turns tail before the onslaught of scatol (as well it might, indeed !), in which case there is nothing to be done but to bear it (without the grin mostly) ; or to follow the wise example of vervain ; or to remove the offence, as we have done in England these latter days, only to render ourselves, as I have carefully pointed out in Chapter I., all the more sensitive to it when it does come.

To many of us it comes on the dog.

This animal has a regrettable fondness for wallowing, diligently and with forethought, in the Abominable, until his coat is thoroughly well impregnated. For no other reason, I do verily believe, than, as he thinks, to give his human friends for once some of the olfactory pleasure he himself enjoys. A treat he thinks it, without any doubt. Just look at the smirk of pride and satisfaction on his face as he trots in and resumes his place on the drawing-room hearthrug and the amazement with which he receives the sudden toe of your boot !

And yet he rolls himself over on the odoriferous for the same reason that a fashionable lady has orris-root put in her bath; namely, for the pleasure and gratification of society at large. There are who say that my lady’s perfume seems