But whether this animal comprehended what he said was a mystery.

Very evidently this dog, whose glottis was organized in a manner to enable him to emit regular sounds, attached no more sense to his words than do the paroquets, parrots, jackdaws, and magpies to theirs.

A phrase with animals is nothing more than a kind of song or spoken cry, borrowed from a strange language of which they do not know the meaning.
However that might be, Dingo had become the hero of the deck, of which fact he took no proud advantage.

Several times Captain Hull repeated the experiment.

The wooden cubes of the alphabet were placed before Dingo, and invariably, without an error, without hesitation, the two letters, S and V, were chosen from among all by the singular animal, while the others never attracted his attention.
As for Cousin Benedict, this experiment was often renewed before him, without seeming to interest him.
"Meanwhile," he condescended to say one day, "we must not believe that the dogs alone have the privilege of being intelligent in this manner.
Other animals equal them, simply in following their instinct.