“Well, he will have all eternity to study Natural History in next time he does it,” I remarked, and we changed the subject. I got to tolerate Sam after a time, because he finished up James’s cigar ends. An ash-tray full of horrors vanished in a moment before his all-embracing slobber--but enough--the dinner-gong will sound in vain for me if I allow my mind to dwell on Sam’s habits. The only dog I have ever loved is dear to me because he is less like a dog than anything else. He is known to his friends as the “occasional table,” because that is what he is like. He has a highly polished oblong surface, and stands on Chippendale legs, and people trip over him, which always amuses me. There is no high-class amusement like this to be got out of Sam; he merely barges into people like a drunken hippopotamus, which is not in the least funny. But the “occasional table” is the only dog I know who appears to possess a pocket-handkerchief and use it, and I have never seen him eat in public. Dearest quality of all, he knows that burglars are not announced in the drawing-room, even that they do not ring the front door bell. What a truly blessed thing life would be if he could spread these glad tidings amongst the rest of his shrieking brotherhood! This seems to be a chapter on race-meetings and dogs rather than on Louise, my maid; but there is very little Louise apart from horses, dogs, good temper and lace, and all these points have been touched upon. I now understand better why Perrin does not like her. As one of the young ladies she would have done well enough; he would have tucked her up in her high dog-cart with a certain admiration, and been pleased with her successes at the Agricultural and Kennel Club shows. But for his own after-dinner conversation he prefers something of a fluffier and less independent nature; something of the tea-making, “Lord, Mr. Perrin, be off with you!” sort. Louise has excellent taste in clothes. She steers through yards of drapery with the delicate assurance of a surgeon finding his way amongst the cobweb creations of the human body, and she does it all in the same impersonal way. The Claras of this world suggest lumps of animated matter rolling about, spluttering, and disturbing things that would do very well as they are; the Louises seem to be furthering the end of some pleasant universal desire and disentangling the prejudices that cumber its path. _CHAPTER XX_: RELATIONS-IN-LAW