We started out, William and Freya and I, very early one morning for the dog show. I think it was a Saturday. Anyhow, I remember that we had liver for breakfast the next day, and we usually had liver on Sundays. Freya and I were put in the dog and the crate was put in the little and William drove. The Master, the Mistress and the Baby went in the carriage. Father and Mother were left at home. Father made quite a fuss about it and climbed into the wagon twice and had to be put out, but Mother just told us to be good children and not get into trouble and went back and laid down in the stable .  
Freya was so excited that she couldn’t keep still. I was excited, too, but I didn’t show it. I just laid down on the bottom of the crate and out between the slats and tried to see the world. It was hard work, though, because the slats were very close together and the wagon bumped a good deal. After a while the wagon slowed down and we heard a lot of barking and knew that we were almost there. When William lifted the crate down and opened it the Master looked in and said “Hello, you ! Have a good trip?” Freya and I licked his hand and he put chains on our collars and we jumped out.
 
I was a little frightened at first. Never had I seen so many people or heard so many dogs. And as for carriages and , why, I suppose there must have been hundreds! Folks were walking around over the grass and dogs were being taken out of and and it was a strange and wonderful scene. In front of us was a big tent, oh, quite the largest tent you can possibly imagine! And from the tent came such a barking and as I’d never heard. Freya at her chain and seemed very anxious to get to it, but I held back and sort of wished myself back home. But just then the Mistress and the Baby came up with some other folks, and the Baby put her arms around my neck and said I was her “booful dogums” and I felt braver. So we all went into the tent.
 
It was full of platforms, or “benches” as they called them, which were open in front and closed at back and divided into little pens by wire screens. William led us to one of the pens and as we went all the dogs who saw us barked and and said things to us and made a noise. We jumped up on the bench and William tied our chains to rings in the back of the pen. There were two pieces of paper with numbers on them there, and the Master tied tags to our collars, and the tags had the same numbers that were on the back of the pen. Mine was 86 and Freya’s was 87. William brought a big armful of nice clean straw and put it on the bottom of the pen and I got as far away into a corner as I could and laid down and shivered a little. But Freya jumped and tugged at her chain and barked and went on very rudely. William took a piece of cloth and rubbed us hard with it and then he brought us some water.
 
While I was lying in the corner a dog in the next pen tried to put his nose through the grating and I turned around quickly and nipped it. It didn’t hurt him much, I guess, but he made an awful fuss about it and a lady who was sitting on the edge of his pen scolded me and said I was a dog and that if I did that again she’d have me taken away. She took that other dog in her arms and petted him and gave him something to eat out of a little bag,[134] and the dog and sniffled and acted terribly silly. I made up my mind that if he put his nose into our pen again I’d give him another nip. And just then he saw me looking over at him and he at me, and I knew that he had been making all that fuss so his Mistress would give him something out of the little bag!
 
I asked him later on what it was she gave him and he said it was raw meat. He said I didn’t hurt him much but he wanted the meat. He was the same kind of a dog as I, only he was all brown and very fat. We got to be very good friends later. His name was Sigismund. He told me that his Mistress took him to all the shows but he never got a prize but once and then there were only two other dachshunds there. He said he didn’t mind not getting prizes, but that his Mistress always felt very badly about it and was quite cross to the judges.
 
“She thinks I’m a very fine dog,” he said, “but I’m not, you know. You can see yourself that I’m too short in the body and too high at the back. Besides, my teeth are bad. That comes from too much meat. It’s all rather , this sort of thing, but she likes it and I put up with it. Who is the dog with you?”
 
I told him she was my sister and he said she was very pretty and he guessed she’d get a blue ribbon. All this was later in the day, though, after I’d got sort of used to the noise and all the people. They kept walking around and walking around until it made my head spin to see them. I did wish they’d sit down somewhere or go away. They’d stop in front of us and say the rudest things! Why, one lady looked at us and said “Did you ever see such funny things, Tom? The idea of any one thinking them nice!” Freya let folks pat her but I didn’t. I .
 
Across the from us were a lot of big, long-haired dogs with noses. I heard William say they were collies. They did nothing but bark all the time. They were the most excited dogs I ever saw. Further along were some fox terriers, and besides those there we............