WHEN the occasion is propitious, I always find it interesting to ask a person I don't know well if he, or she, is fond of dogs. The propitiousness of the occasion is perfect, however, only when there is a dog in the same room or on the same piazza, or wherever we, for the moment, happen to be talking. The reply to this question is to me a kind of exquisitely personal barometer. From it I have always been able to gauge with extreme accuracy the degree to which my sympathy and friendship with him who makes it might possibly rise. False answers to other questions have often deceived me, but a reply to the inquiry: Are you fond of dogs? never has. From the way in which the reply is phrased, from the tone in which it is spoken, from the facial expression that accompanies it, I am instinctively able to "size it up," weigh it, and see exactly what there is behind it.