—Thorvaldsen down on Sankt Annae Plads likes to be called Your Grace, like his person the bishop.

—You’re a funny dog, Badger, to like cats.

—Why not? He’s fun to talk to. Cats don’t like dogs because we smell butts and they resent it. They smell mouths, did you know? Anyway, I get along with His Grace Thorvaldsen the Holstein cat. They know things, cats. Their ear is more critical than a dog’s. Good nose, too, but the whole race of them is so prudish and inhibited as to seem to have no nose at all.

(from “Badger,” as printed in The Drummer of the Eleventh North Devonshire Fusiliers by Guy Davenport)