You imagine that the two dogs have already passed each other, for they are no longer hesitating flank to flank, but are aligned almost in keel formation, the one with his head turned in one direction, the other with his in the opposite direction. They do not see each other; they scarcely turn their heads, merely squinting towards the rear, straining the eyeball back as far as possible. Even though they are already separated by some short distance, the tenacious, sinister tie still holds and neither of them is sure whether the moment of liberation has arrived. Both would like to move off, but some inscrutable, conscientious anxiety prevents them from leaving the spot. Until at last—at last!—the ban is broken, and Bashan, redeemed, and with the air of having just been granted a new lease of life, goes bounding off. I mention these things in order to indicate how strange and alien so close a friend may appear under certain circumstances—times when his entire nature reveals itself as something eerie and obscure. I brood upon this mystery and find no answer save a shake of the head. It is only by intuition and not by reason that I am able to identify myself with it. Otherwise I am well acquainted with Bashan’s inner world, and am able to meet its every manifestation with sympathy and with cheerfulness—to understand his play of features, his whole behaviour. How well, for example, a solitary example, do I know that chirruping yawn to which he has recourse whenever he has been disappointed in the results of a walk. It may be that the walk was all too short or else barren of events in a sporting sense—as sometimes happens when I have begun my day’s work a little later than usual and have gone into the open air with Bashan for a brief quarter of an hour before sitting down at my desk. He walks beside me then, and yawns. It is a shameless, impolite, wide-angle yawning—the yawning of the beast, of the brute, and it is accompanied by a whistling, guttural note and by a hurt and bored look. It says, as clearly as words:— “A nice sort of master I’ve got! I went and fetched him from the bridge last night. And now he goes and sits behind that there glass door, and I’ve got to wait till he goes out, and me a-perishing with impatience. And then at last when he _does_ go out, he turns round again and starts back home before I’ve had a sniff at a single bit o’ game! A fine sort of master, eh? And what a mean trick to play on a hound! Why, he ain’t fit to be called a master at all!”