He saw first the taut leash of an old man pulling behind him a dog with its legs splayed out.  To call it a leash would have been to call a mansion a lean-to.  It was leather and etched and bejeweled and yellow.  The dog had one end in its teeth, relieving strain on its neck while the old man’s right arm pulled almost straight back, straining far more.  Yet his eyes stayed with the leash.  Without it, what he was seeing would not be possible.  Without a leash, one would not be able to pull and drag another.  A man and dog to stay together in public places would have to get to know each other better.  He felt a truth to that, a sad one — for, as with many sad truths, he knew it to be quite irrelevant.  After all, he thought, doesn’t the story of man start with, “There was a leash,” before the human characters are introduced?