and returned to my desk. I forgot her for the
moment, and when I looked I found that she had squirmed out of my pocket
on to the table and was trying to swallow the pen; then she put her leg
into the ink-pot and upset it; then she licked her leg; then she swore
again--at me this time.

I put her down on the floor, and there Tim began rowing with her. I do
wish Tim would mind his own business. It was no concern of his what
she had been doing. Besides, he is not a saint himself. He is only a
two-year-old fox-terrier, and he interferes with everything and gives
himself the airs of a gray-headed Scotch collie.

Tittums' mother has come in and Tim has got his nose scratched, for
which I am remarkably glad. I have put them all three out in the
passage, where they are fighting at the present moment. I'm in a mess
with the ink and in a thundering bad temper; and if anything more in the
cat or dog line comes fooling about me this morning, it had better bring
its own funeral contractor with it.

Yet, in general, I like cats and dogs very much indeed. What jolly chaps
they are! They are much superior to human beings as companions. They
do not quarrel or argue with you. They never talk about themselves but
listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance
of being interested in the conversation. They never make stupid remarks.
They never observe to Miss Brown across a dinner-table that they always
understood she was very sweet on Mr. Jones (who has just married Miss
Robinson). They never mistake your wife's cousin for her husband and
fancy that you are the father-in-law. And they never ask a young author
with fourteen tragedies, sixteen comedies, seven farces, and a couple of
burlesques in his desk why he doesn't write a play.

They never say unkind things. They never tell us of our faults, "merely
for our own good." They do not at inconvenient moments mildly remind us
of our past follies and mistakes. They do not say, "Oh, yes, a lot of
use you are if you are ever really wanted"--sarcastic like. They never
inform us, like our _inamoratas_ sometimes do, that we are not nearly so
nice as we used to be. We are always the same to them.

They are always glad to see us. They are with us in all our humors. They
are merry when we are glad, sober when we feel solemn, and sad when we
are sorrowful.

"Halloo! happy and want a lark? Right you are; I'm your man. Here I am,
frisking round you, leaping, barking, piroue