I do not mean that poor Dash’s infatuated _penchant_ for Cæsar—at the best always surly to him, and whose rude tolerance was bought by the relish which Cæsar, with other tyrants, had for low flattery—was entirely a cake and pudding, or, I should say more fitly here, a beef and bone attachment. I do not wish to imply more than that, in such an unreasonable, unreasoning passion as that which not unfrequently links a Dash to a Cæsar, I have generally found beneath the weak creature’s softness, silliness, flagrant imprudence, and apparent self-abnegation, a very considerable leaven of self-will and selfishness, with a lively appreciation of what are to the victim the good things of this life. Still I am willing to admit these are not the only motives for such a perverse, well-nigh degrading subjection, and that even the spaniel Dash entertained an incomprehensible tenderness for the brute Cæsar, apart from the hope of the reversion of Cæsar’s bones, which, when thoroughly sated himself, he permitted sometimes to his visitor. I know there exists an odd fascination in outward inequality, when the foundations of character are tolerably balanced. It was the brusque manner and slightly hectoring tones of Tot—who was in the main a thoroughly kind-hearted fellow, and quite a different character from Cæsar—that rendered him the favourite brother of his gentlest sister Nelly. But Nelly, again, was not like Dash; she was, with all her delicate womanliness, not merely transparent as crystal and true as steel, but firm as a rock on questions of moment to her; and it is to cowardly, vacillating natures that I am inclined to ascribe—in addition to the attraction which boldness has for softness—double motives, and a constitutional tendency to artful manœuvring and secret defiance. It was in secret defiance that Dash waited on Cæsar. Dog as he was, Dash knew perfectly well that he was warned away from the precincts of the watch-dog’s couch, and that every effort was made to show him it was not in accordance with his own welfare, any more than with his owners’ wishes, that he should expose himself to Cæsar’s coarse companionship and often grisly humour. And Dash had not even the excuse of the fly for yielding to the wiles of the spider. Cæsar certainly did not invite the spaniel into his “chamber.” He was neither complacent nor cunning enough to solicit his satellite’s company; he did no more than permit it, with a sort of insolent indifference. Dash chose to risk himself in a combination of credulous vanity, lurking—not open—naughtiness, misplaced affection, and greed.