a dachshund pulls rank

Charles Kingsley, the Victorian clergyman and novelist best known these days for his book The Water Babies, was said to be a man of generous heart - not least towards his pets. A journal article published after his death offers glimpses of his love for these creatures in all their varying characters.

Particularly colorful is the account of Victor, whose attitude would not fly in these days of class equality:

Victor was another dearly beloved pet of the great author. He was a dachshund of the royal breed, for he was given to Kingsley by Queen Victoria herself from her own kennel. He was "five inches high and a yard long when he was grown," says his mistress. "And he acted like a spoiled child and ruled the house. He insisted on sleeping in my bedroom, and if he was put out his shrieks roused the house. He had very aristocratic tastes. No power on earth could make him go down by the back stairs. and if the maids invited him to the kitchen he would leave them to go down their own way, and running round by the front stairs. would meet them at the kitchen door.

-- from "Pets of a Great Man," in The Sabbath Recorder (Vol. 83 no. 1, July 2 1917), pp. 470-71.