y one else was conscious of the fact.

New experiences were crowding thick and fast upon Finn and Kathleen
just now. After rubbing shoulders with this astonishing crowd for
some minutes, they found themselves face to face for the first time
in their lives with a flight of steps. True, they each felt a
soothing hand on their shoulders, a hand they knew and loved, but
the thing was disconcerting none the less. At first glance these
steps obviously called for small leaps and bounds as a mode of
progression. And yet, when one took ever so small a leap, one's
nose inevitably came into sharp contact with the legs of strange
humans who climbed in front; a distinctly unpleasant experience,
because undignified, and implying a desire for familiarity which
Finn by no means felt.

However, an end came to the steps at length, and then, after
walking some distance in the open road, and being allowed to run
loose for a few minutes in a quiet street, full of strange, strong
smells and a curious absence of air, Finn and Kathleen were led
into a large building, bigger than the orchard at home, and
containing, besides countless humans, all the dogs that ever were
in all the world, all talking incoherently, and together. At least,
that was how it struck Finn and Kathleen. As a matter of fact,
there were some thousands of dogs in the Crystal Palace that day,
for it was the opening day of the great annual Kennel Club Show;
the biggest society event of the year among dogs. It was a more
exclusive assembly than any of the purely human sort, because every
dog, among all the thousands there assembled, was an aristocrat
with a pedigree as long as his body. There was not a parvenu among
them all; and there are no human assemblies about which that may be
said.

It is difficult to conceive precisely how great an ordeal it was
for Finn and Kathleen to face, when they were led down the length
of this great building to their own particular bench among the
other Irish Wolfhounds, of whom there were some thirty or forty
present. For fifty yards or more they walked down an aisle between
double rows of benches, every yard of which was occupied by
terriers of one sort and another, all yapping and barking at the
top of their respective registers. Be it remembered that Finn and
Kathleen, up till that morning, had never been at close quarters
with more than one dog at a time, and had never seen more than
about a dozen dogs outside their own breed altogeth