Page:Under the Sun.djvu/271

Rh Sumner Gibson, to illustrate joy, tells us of her pet, which on seeing her unexpectedly return after a long absence was violently sick. I remember when at school seeing a violent physical shock, accompanied by the same symptoms, affect a boy when suddenly approached by a master while in the act of eating gooseberries in class. But none of us attributed the result to an excess of delight.

Laziness is a trait well exemplified in dogs. Thus Cole’s dog of ancient fame was so lazy that he always leaned his head against a wall to bark. So did Ludlam’s.

Courage is not more common among dogs than among men. I had once three dogs who accompanied me on a certain occasion to a museum. The hall at the entrance was devoted to the larger mammalia, and the dogs on passing the folding door found themselves suddenly confronted by the whole order of the carnivora, all drawn up according to their families and genera, ready to fall upon and devour them. With a howl of the most dismal horror, all three flung themselves against the door, and if I had not rushed to open it, would certainly have died or gone mad then and there from sheer terror. As it was they flew through the open door with every individual hair on their bodies standing out like a wire, and arrived at home, some three miles off, in such a state of alarm that my servants were seriously alarmed for my safety. One of the three always slept in my room at night, but on the night after the fright howled so lamentably, and had such bad dreams, that I had to expel him. Miss Cobbe, in her delightful book, illustrates this whimsical cowardice by a bull terrier, who, ready apparently to fight anything, went into paroxysms