“Oh! you saucy hyphen,” I said—his name was Grosvater-Leinchen, and I rolled him over and over a few times in the dust, like a little four-legged worm.
He got up, looking very dusty, and shook himself.
“Who’s been debauching you?” I said fiercely. “Come on now—I can bite as well as any dog,” and I showed him two rows of strong teeth.
“If I make new friends, it’s no business of yours,” he said sulkily.
“Oho!” I said. “I know now. It’s that new German police dog that has come to the Drive. So he told you the patter about the domestic hearth. Now I’ll tell you something more. He’s a stranger, he doesn’t fit in here. You’re a New Yorker, and subject to the law of the Drive, which is that a dog must function.”
“I don’t know what that is,” he said irritably.
“Why, you’ve got to fit in here, and play the game. You must respect the rights of other dogs, and not impose your little Dachshund will on us. Did you ever hear of liberty, equality, fraternity?”
“No,” he said in an ugly little voice, that told me the spell of the police dog was still upon him.
“Well,” I said, “for you, that means that if the griffon gets here first, and wants the warmest patch of sunlight, you’ve got to let him have it. You’ve no business to drive him out.”
“But I’m a bigger dog,” he said in surprise, “and I’m German. He’s only a Belgian.”