The Chow Dog was living in a house on the shores of Loch Lomond; and the first time I saw him was when he came with his mistress to call at the hotel. For reasons which will presently appear, I shall call him Confucius, though this is not his real name.

When his mistress came in to see us Confucius stopped outside, and I saw him through the window. He was of the shape of a neat little pig; he was soft and furry, and in colour like a golden fox; he had black eyes, and a bluish-black tongue. As soon as you saw that tongue you realised how inartistic, how unfinished, a red tongue is; one might as well have pink boots. By as much as a black Berkshire is more proper and neater than a pink pig, so is a bluish-black tongue better than a red one.

We were so much ravished by the appearance of the Chow Dog that we went out at once to be introduced to him. As soon as he saw us coming he began to trot steadily homewards. We had to leave him to his mistress and retire indoors, and after some conflict of wills and clash of temperaments she appeared victorious with the dog tucked under her arm.

We found that he was at this time only four months old, and absolutely the most self-confident creature living. He thought he knew everything, and scorn was the very breath of his nostrils. Though his personal experience, compared to ours, was short, he felt behind him the centuries of Chinese civilisation. When his empire was elderly, our civilisation was in the cradle. This more than redressed the personal balance and left him to the good.

Confucius clearly did not care to make our acquaintance, but we felt it a privilege to be admitted to a greater intimacy with him.

He comported himself at home with dignity, though not always with civility; he had none of the puppy abandon natural at his age. I tried to teach him to retrieve a piece of paper. He was bored, but he would not be taken at a disadvantage; so he walked slowly after the paper and gravely returned it to me. After I had persisted in this exercise for some time, he saw that it was meant for a game, and as he would not appear deficient in a sense of humour, he gambolled a little as he went after it.

Confucius never gave himself up to a passing emotion. I saw him once on the rocks with a real puppy, a spaniel puppy bigger than the Chow and probably older. It crouched before him sinuous and silly; it sprang up, gambolled round him and crouched again; it flew at a gallop past his nose and lay down on the other side of him. It exhausted itself in futilities, and gasped and panted with its efforts; and all this time the Chow surveyed it with a bright, contemptuous eye. When it was utterly worn out he got up and went away.

At last Confucius made a mistake. We saw him on the edge of the lake one day with something in his mouth which he swung and tossed from side to side. We called him, and with exultant pride he came towards us. The thing was soft and furry, and so long that it hindered him as he ran. He laid it down before us with jaunty tail and conceited eye—it was his first rabbit.

I had so often smarted under the sense of Confucius’ contempt that I was not prepared to be tender to his humiliation. I had not known what it would be like. He took corporal punishment with a fair amount of self-control, but he strained and howled at the indignity of a chain, and the shame of looking at that furry thing of which but just now he had been so proud. When he found that he could not get free, he sat down and thought over the situation until his tail uncurled.

In our walk that evening we were not preceded by a triumphant golden dog, with well-cocked tail and exalted nose, for Confucius followed behind, lost in thought. He did not stray for a moment into the bushes; no rustle of wild creatures could attract him. He was dreeing his weird.

He had finished dreeing it by next morning, however, and his opinion of himself was quite restored—more than restored—as he had laid up a new piece of experience.

The last time I saw the Chow was when we left Loch Lomond. He came with his party to see us off, but it was wet and the boat was late. They had to return home, while we waited sheltering in the pierman’s hut.

The party must have fallen out by the way, for we had not waited long before Confucius came trotting back alone, quite cheerful and self-possessed. He went round to the further side of the hut so as to interpose it between himself and the homeward path. Then he sat down very comfortably. If either a dog or a philosopher could have winked, Confucius would have winked at us.

The steamer drew away until the shed grew small against the fir-tree stems, and we could only see a tiny golden speck beside it. But we knew that was Confucius sitting Jacques-like to mock at the world, at our superficial brains, our simple wiles and our infant civilisation.