This he varies by nosing about the
visitor's legs and growling. I am not fond of dogs under the best of
circumstances. I always labour under the presumption that they will
bite. Their habit of suddenly dashing across the floor, in furious
pursuit of nothing in particular, upsets me. But an invisible dog under
a dining-room table is a dreadful experience. It is true that I managed
to give Mrs. Harrington a fairly rational account of the woman's
suffrage parade. But was she aware, as I sat there smiling
spasmodically, what agonies of fear were mine as I waited for those
white fangs under the table to sink into my flesh? If, under the
circumstances, I confused Harriet Beecher Stowe with Julia Ward Howe,
and made a bad blunder about woman's rights in Finland, am I so very
much to blame?
Not that the Harringtons are the worst offenders in this respect. There
is an old classmate, and a very dear friend, indeed, who lives on
Flushing Bay, and has a pair of hopelessly ferocious dogs that hold the
neighbourhood in terror. The only occasion on which they have been known
to show indifference to strangers was one night when burglars broke in
and stole some silver and a revolver.
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