manifestation of the strange and therefore of the disreputable.
Conversation between persons unknown to one another is also—when satisfactory—apt to be rich in the ritual of recognition. When one hears or takes part in these elaborate evolutions, gingerly proffering one after another of one’s marks of identity, one’s views on the weather, on fresh air and draughts, on the Government and on uric acid, watching intently for the first low hint of a growl, which will show one belongs to the wrong pack {120} and must withdraw, it is impossible not to be reminded of the similar manœuvres of the dog, and to be thankful that Nature has provided us with a less direct, though perhaps a more tedious, code.
It may appear that we have been dealing here with a far-fetched and laboured analogy, and making much of a comparison of trivialities merely for the sake of compromising, if that could be done, human pretensions to reason. To show that the marvel of human communion began, perhaps, as a very humble function, and yet retains traces of its