My condition in life was peculiarly comfortable. I was brought up in an old manor-house inhabited by a gentleman and his daughter, with several respectable and good-natured servants. My education was conducted with care, and from my earliest youth I had the advantage of an introduction into good society. I was not, indeed, allowed to come much into the drawing-room, as my master said I was too large for a drawing-room dog; but I had the range of the lower part of the house, and constant admittance to his study, where I was welcome to share his fireside while he read the newspapers or received visitors. I took great interest in his friends; and by means of listening to their conversation, watching them from under my eyelids while they thought I was asleep, and smelling them carefully, I could form a sufficiently just estimate of their characters to regulate my own conduct towards them. Though a polite dog both by birth and breeding, I was too honest and independent to show the same respect and cordiality towards those whom I liked and those whom I despised; and though very grateful for the smallest favours from persons I esteemed, no flattery, caresses, or benefactions could induce me to strike up an intimacy with one who did not please me. If I had been able to speak, I should have expressed my opinions without ceremony; and it often surprised me that my master, who could say what he pleased, did not quarrel with people, and tell them all their faults openly. I thought, if I had been he, I would have had many a fight with intruders, to whom he was not only civil himself, but compelled me to be so too. I have often observed that it appears proper for human beings to observe a kind of respect even towards persons they dislike; a line of conduct which _brutes_ cannot understand.
However, I was not without my own methods of showing my sentiments. If I felt indifferent or contemptuous towards a person entering the room, I merely opened one eye and yawned at him. If he attempted any compliments, calling me "Good Captain," "Fine Dog," and trying to pat me, I shook off his hand, and rising from my rug, turned once round, and curling my tail under me, sank down again to my repose without taking any further notice of him. But occasionally my master admitted visitors whom I considered as such highly improper acquaintances for him, that I could scarcely restrain my indignation. I knew I must not bite them, though, in my own opinion, it would have been by far the best thing to do; I did not dare so much as to bark at them, for my master objected even to that expression of feeling: but I could not resist receiving them with low growls; during their visit I never took my eyes off them for a moment, and I made a point of following them to the door, and seeing them safe off the premises. Others, on the contrary, I regarded with the highest confidence and esteem. Their visits gave almost as much pleasure to me as to my master, and I took pains to show my friendship by every means in my power; leaving the fireside to meet them, wagging my tail, shaking a paw with them the moment I was asked, and sitting with my nose resting on their lap.