"A strange adventure!" exclaimed Raschke. "What are you, unknown creature? Presumably a dog. Away with you!" The animal retreated a few steps. Raschke continued his meditations: "If we trace back the expression and gestures of the affections to their original forms in this manner, one of the most active laws would certainly prove to be the endeavor to attract or repel the extraneous. It would be instructive to distinguish, by means of these involuntary movements of men and animals, what is essential and what conventional. Away, dog! Do me a favor and go home. What does he want with me? Evidently he belongs to Werner's domain. The poor creature will assuredly lose itself in the town under the dominion of an _idée fixe_."
Meantime Speihahn's attacks were becoming more violent; and now he was marching in a quite unnatural and purely conventional manner on his hind legs, while his fore paws were leaning against the professor's back, and his teeth were actually biting into the coat.
A belated shoemaker's boy stood still and beat his leathern apron. "Is not the master ashamed to let his poor apprentice push him along like that?" In truth, the dog behind the man looked like a dwarf pushing a giant along the ice.
Raschke's interest in the dog's thoughts increased. He stood still near a lantern, examined and felt his coat. This coat had developed a velvet collar and very long sleeves, advantages that the philosopher had never yet remarked in his greatcoat. Now the matter became clear to him: absorbed in thought, he had chosen a wrong coat, and the worthy dog insisted on saving his master's garment, and making the thief aware that there was something wrong. Raschke was so pleased with this sagacity that he turned round, addressed some kind words to Speihahn, and made an attempt to stroke his shaggy hair. The dog again snapped at his hand. "You are quite right to be angry with me," replied Raschke; "I will prove to you that I acknowledge my fault." He took off the coat and hung it over his arm. "Yes, it is much heavier than my own." He walked on cheerfully in his thin coat, and observed with satisfaction that the dog abandoned the attacks on his back. But instead, Speihahn sprang upon his side, and again bit at the coat and the hand, and growled unpleasantly.