of our common liking for dogs, for that love
manifested itself in me at an age when I was yet ignorant of the
alphabet.

A clever man being at this time engaged in preparing a "History of
Animals of Letters," I jot down these notes in which he may find, so far
as my own animals are concerned, trustworthy information.

The earliest remembrance of this sort that I have goes back to the time
of my arrival in Paris from Tarbes. I was then three years old, so that
it is difficult to credit the statement made by Mirecourt and Vapereau,
who affirm that I "proved but an indifferent pupil" in my native town.
Home-sickness of a violence that no one would credit a child with being
capable of experiencing, fell upon me. I spoke our local dialect only,
and people who talked French "were not mine own people." I would wake in
the middle of the night and inquire whether we were not soon to start on
our return to our own land.

No dainty tempted me, no toy could amuse me. Drums and trumpets equally
failed to relieve my gloom. Among the objects and beings I regretted
figured a dog called Cagnotte, whom it had been found impossible to
bring with us. His absence told on me to such an extent that one
morning, having first chucked out of the window my little tin soldiers,
my German village with its painted houses, and my bright red fiddle, I
was about to take the same road to return as speedily as possible to
Tarbes, the Gascons, and Cagnotte. I was grabbed by the jacket in the
nick of time, and Josephine, my nurse, had the happy thought to tell me
that Cagnotte, tired of waiting for us, was coming that very day by the
stage-coach. Children accept the improbable with artless faith; nothing
strikes them as impossible; only, they must not be deceived, for there
is no impairing the fixity of a settled idea in their brains. I kept
asking, every fifteen minutes, whether Cagnotte had not yet come. To
quiet me, Josephine bought on the Pont-Neuf a little dog not unlike the
Tarbes specimen. I did not feel sure of its identity, but I was told
that travelling changed dogs very much. I was satisfied with the
explanation and accepted the Pont-Neuf dog as being the authentic
Cagnotte. He was very gentle, very amiable, and very well behaved. He
would lick my cheeks, and indeed his tongue was not above licking also
the slices of bread and butter cut for my afternoon tea. We lived on the
best of terms with each other.

Presently, however, the supposed C