Here is a quaint story which shows the gentle Elia in a most characteristic way: “Just before the Lambs quitted the metropolis,” says Pitman, “they came to spend a day with me at Fulham and brought with them a companion, who, dumb animal though he was, had for some time past been in the habit of giving play to one of Charles Lamb’s most amiable characteristics—that of sacrificing his own feelings and inclinations to those of others. This was a large and very handsome dog, of a rather curious and sagacious breed, which had belonged to Thomas Hood, and at the time I speak of, and to oblige both dog and master, had been transferred to the Lambs, who made a great pet of him, to the entire disturbance and discomfiture, as it appeared, of all Lamb’s habits of life, but especially of that most favourite and salutary of all—his long and heretofore solitary suburban walks; for Dash—that was the dog’s name—would never allow Lamb to quit the house without him, and when out, would never go anywhere but precisely where it pleased himself. The consequence was, that Lamb made himself a perfect slave to this dog, who was always half a mile off from his companion, either before or behind, scouring the fields or roads in all directions, up and down ‘all manner of streets,’ and keeping his attendant in a perfect fever of anxiety and irritation from his fear of losing him on the one hand, and his reluctance to put the needful restraint upon him on the other. Dash perfectly well knew his host’s amiable weakness in this respect, and took a doglike advantage of it. In the Regent’s Park, in particular, Dash had his _quasi_-master completely at his mercy, for the moment they got within the ring he used to squeeze himself through the railing and disappear for half an hour together in the then inclosed and thickly planted greensward, knowing perfectly well that Lamb did not dare to move from the spot where he (Dash) had disappeared, till he thought proper to show himself again. And they used to take this walk oftener than any other, precisely because Dash liked it, and Lamb did not.”