Not until Mister Haggin abruptly picked him up under one arm and
stepped into the sternsheets of the waiting whaleboat, did Jerry
dream that anything untoward was to happen to him. Mister Haggin
was Jerry's beloved master, and had been his beloved master for the
six months of Jerry's life. Jerry did not know Mister Haggin as
"master," for "master" had no place in Jerry's vocabulary, Jerry
being a smooth-coated, golden-sorrel Irish terrier.
But in Jerry's vocabulary, "Mister Haggin" possessed all the
definiteness of sound and meaning that the word "master" possesses
in the vocabularies of humans in relation to their dogs. "Mister
Haggin" was the sound Jerry had always heard uttered by Bob, the
clerk, and by Derby, the foreman on the plantation, when they
addressed his master. Also, Jerry had always heard the rare
visiting two-legged man-creatures such as came on the Arangi,
address his master as Mister Haggin.
But dogs being dogs, in their dim, inarticulate, brilliant, and
heroic-worshipping ways misappraising humans, dogs think of their
masters, and love their masters, more than the facts warrant.
"Master" means to them, as "Mister" Haggin meant to Jerry, a deal
more, and a great deal more, than it means to humans. The human
considers himself as "master" to his dog, but the dog considers his
master "God."