His appearance, on emerging from that
cesspool, was the reverse of majestic; but the incident gave him such
an idea on the subject of cats, that he always persecuted them
remorselessly from that day; nor did he ever again walk through a
suburb in any other frame of mind than a particularly wide-awake one,
and with his tail up.
These dogs are curiously sensitive about their dignity, and sometimes
do not recover their elasticity of spirits for several days after
having undergone a process of correction. I recollect a singular
instance of this sensitiveness displayed by Sambo, in which he also
manifested a kind of inferential power wonderfully akin to reason.
One morning, a tumult of dogs in the street drew him to the window, out
of which he looked by jumping on a chair, just as a troop of "curs of
low degree" tore past after a rather genteel-looking dog with a kettle
tied to his tail. They whirled rapidly by in a turmoil of dust, and
clink, and cur-dog yelp, but not so rapidly as to prevent Sam from
perceiving the terrible degradation to which a gentleman-dog had been
subjected. The sight had a visible effect on his spirits, for he
immediately became quite depressed as to tail and mind, a condition
which influenced him for a day or two, after which he again appeared
comparatively cheerful, and took his place in society with his
accustomed cautious conviviality.
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