“Sure—that’s it. A poor dog loses his master. He runs wild and howls. A crowd chases him, and he foams at the mouth. Then they kill him. Rabies!—rats!”
“Come, come,” I said, “we’re dogs of course, but let us look at the human point of view. There is such a disease.”
“Of course there is, but it’s as rare as a summer’s day in winter. You’ve as much chance of being struck by lightning, as of being bit by a mad dog.”
“Yet there are people killed by lightning,” I said.
He was grumbling on to himself. “The Lord made dogs—Man can’t improve ’em. He gave us our mouths free to chew grass and pick a little earth for stomach troubles. You muzzle a dog, and he gets sick and makes his master sick. The fool commissioner hurts the humans more than he helps them.”
“But he’s trying to wipe out the disease,” I said. “There isn’t much of it, and if the dogs are muzzled for a few years, it will be stamped out.”
“Yes, and we’ll have a dozen other worse diseases by that time. A muzzled dog is a menace to his master, I tell you. Let ’em supervise our health in some way. Let the government do as much for us as they do for pigs. Then we wouldn’t hear of rabies. The commissioner’s a fool—New York’s rotten anyway.”
I didn’t dare to disagree with him, for he probably would have nabbed me. “Well,” I said humbly, “I suppose we must let them come first.”
“Who come first?” he growled.
“Human beings—we’re second.”