“His nose is pointed like a hound's nose,” says Squint Thompson.
“Well,” says Freckles, “neither one of them kind of dogs is a common dog.”
“Spot has got some bulldog blood in him, too,” says Tom Mulligan, an Irish boy owned by a dog by the name of Mutt Mulligan. “Did you ever notice how Spot will hang on so you can't pry him loose, when he gets into a fight?”
“That proves he is an aristocratic kind of dog,” says Freckles.
“There's some bird dog blood in Spot,” says the Stray Boy, sizing me up careful.
“He's got some collie in him, too,” says Squint Thompson. “His voice sounds just like a collie's when he barks.”
“But his tail is more like a coach dog's tail,” says Tom Mulligan.
“His hair ain't, though,” says the Stray Boy. “Some of his hair is like a setter's.”
“His teeth are like a mastiff's,” says Mutt Mulligan's boy Tom. And they went on like that; I never knew before there were so many different kinds of thoroughbred dog. Finally Freckles says:
“Yes, he's got all them different kinds of thoroughbred blood in him, and he's got other kinds you ain't mentioned and that you ain't slick enough to see. You may think you're running him down, but what you say just proves he ain't a common dog.”