Schnauzer, Hughes

Perusers of the Sunday New York Herald Tribune a fortnight ago found in its rotogravure section a portrait that showed an alert, spruce countenance, small but with a precise magnificence in its well-brushed and steel-grey beard. It reminded them of a someone they knew, some face they had often seen before. When they perused the caption, Charles Evans Hughes' prize-winning Schnauzer, with Miss Christine Charles at the Southampton Dog Show, they began to snicker. While it was possible (if unlikely) that famed Charles Evans Hughes had turned dog fancier, it was an inconceivable as well as an impudent coincidence that the dog 'should bear so exact a facial resemblance to his master. Yet there it was, the calm, thoughtful visage, the long, sagacious nose, Herald Tribune readers whispered, "They're as like as two Chinamen."

Wiser readers, imperturbed, found a more satisfactory explanation of the unpleasant likeness between photographed dog and alleged master. They surmised (rightly) that a dull Herald Tribune copyreader or proofreader had clumsily elevated a comma after the word Hughes so that it indicated a possessive instead of an appositional phrase. Further they surmised (rightly) that Miss Charles, alert owner of the prize-winning Schnauzer, had given him a name which his appearance richly merited.