This incident happens in Chapter XIII of Three Men in a Boat. Montmorency is a fox terrier who accompanies the three men on their trip along the Thames River. The narrator tells us that Montmorency doesn’t like cats and that he has always seen them as enemies. But the dog meets his match here when a large black street-savvy and battle-scarred tomcat confronts him – ironically, by giving him the cold shoulder. The dog runs up to the cat, who turns around and just looks at him quietly but firmly. The narrator imagines a silent conversation between the two of them, with the cat asking what the dog wants, and the dog backing down, claiming to have mistaken him for someone else. After a few minutes, the cat trots away, and Montmorency returns to the boat, “fitting what he calls his tail carefully into its groove.” We’re told that the dog has become quite wary of cats from this moment on.
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