He was never married, and since his mother died, some thirty years ago, he never had a woman in the house, and yet few women could have kept it cleaner than he did himself.
A white terrier that we had for ten years from 1888 used to associate words with ideas even when spoken in ordinary conversation and not directly to him. For instance, if he was lying apparently asleep before the fire, and we happened in talking without reference to him to mention any words that he knew, such as "dog," or "carriage," or "walk," he would look up or perhaps just wag his tail.
The same dog had a wonderful gift of reckoning time. He knew Sunday perfectly well, and he knew it the first thing in the morning, before anything had been done to mark it as different from other days. Generally he would lie on the rug at breakfast time and be quite alert afterwards and on the watch to go out with us, but on Sundays he went straight to his basket when we came down and did not move or look up when breakfast was over. From very early days he used to go with my wife to afternoon Sunday School. He knew exactly the time when she ought to get ready to start, and if then she didn't move he would get up and go to her, and he gave her no peace until she went to dress. When he arrived at the school he would curl himself up on an old shawl in a corner of the room, and until the Lord's Prayer before the final grace of the dismissal prayers he would not stir. Directly he heard the Lord's Prayer, he would get up in readiness, but he never left his corner until the prayers were finished. On one Sunday in the month there was catechising in the Church, instead of Sunday school, and Snap was wont to be shut up by himself in the schoolroom until the service was over. This he didn't much care for, and often when he had started joyously as usual for his walk to the school, three-quarters of a mile away, as soon as he came near enough to hear the church bell ringing, he quietly turned round and went home. When he had been with us for about eight years we took him to London for several weeks. He made the best of it, and seemed to enjoy himself in a way, but it was almost pathetic to see the change directly we got out of the train on our way back. We had to drive three miles in a fly, and though Snap's place was at the bottom under our feet, as soon as we got within a mile of home, he seemed to know the smell of the country and was all excitement, and when he found himself really at home he was quite beside himself with joy and did not rest until he had visited in turn every familiar nook and corner in the garden, then he threw himself down on his own rug in his own house with a sigh of relief and satisfaction.