Page:My last friend, dog Dick (IA mylastfrienddogd00deam).pdf/42

34 pink ribbon at the end of a barbered tail, a tuft around each foot. The Poodle walked along like a dog of good pedigree, in measured tread and unconscious of his decorations. He was absurdly funny. But Mr. Cable was not laughing at him. In the street was a little common cur, "eaten up with curiosity," trying to "'"reason it out alone."

"Who is that?" he seemed to say. "How cool he is! I must investigate." The cur had many expressions in his face, one at a time.

It was the cur that caused Mr. Cable to laugh, his intelligent recognition of the incongruous which Science calls Reason. The poor dog does not get any credit for having Reason, or a mind because he does not laugh. Lista says that he had a dog that did laugh. Dick never laughs and De Amicis says nothing on the point, but Burroughs discredits the intelligence, or mind of animals because they have no perception of the incongruous.

"Il mio ultimo Amico," Dog Dick, is the most subtle, the most elusive, the nearest to the untranslatable of any Italian text I have ever seen. It can not be translated by the use of mere words, or correct construction of mere