Clematis!"

Clematis, it happened, was just coming into view, having been detained
round the corner by his curiosity concerning a set of Louis XVI.
furniture which some house-movers were unpacking upon the sidewalk. A
curl of excelsior, in fact, had attached itself to his nether lip,
and he was pausing to remove it--when his roving eye fell upon Flopit.
Clematis immediately decided to let the excelsior remain where it was,
lest he miss something really important.

He approached with glowing eagerness at a gallop.

Then, having almost reached his goal, he checked himself with surprising
abruptness and walked obliquely beside Flopit, but upon a parallel
course, his manner agitated and his brow furrowed with perplexity.
Flopit was about the size of Clematis's head, and although Clematis was
certain that Flopit was something alive, he could not decide what.

Flopit paid not the slightest attention to Clematis. The self-importance
of dogs, like that of the minds of men, is in directly inverse ratio to
their size; and if the self-importance of Flopit could have been taken
out of him and given to an elephant, that elephant would have been
insufferable.

Flopit continued to pay no attention to Clematis.

All at once, a roguish and irresponsible mood seized upon Clematis; he
laid his nose upon the ground, deliberating a bit of gaiety, and then,
with a little rush, set a large, rude paw upon the sensitive face
of Flopit and capsized him. Flopit uttered a bitter complaint in an