artridges to go
after, he had taken to rat-hunting, and was as clever at it as a Scotch
terrier. At that time I was living in that blind alley of the Doyenne,
now destroyed, where Gerard de Nerval, Arsene Houssaye and Camille
Rogier were the heads of a little picturesque and artistic Bohemia, the
eccentric mode of life in which has been so well told by others that it
is unnecessary to relate it over again. There we were, right in the
centre of the Carrousel, as independent and solitary as on a desert
island in Oceanica, under the shadow of the Louvre, among the blocks of
stone and the nettles, close to an old ruinous church, with fallen-in
roof which looked most romantic in the moonlight. Luther, with whom I
was on a most friendly footing, seeing that I had finally abandoned the
paternal nest, made a point of coming to see me every morning. He
started from Passy, no matter what the weather was, came down the Quai
de Billy, the Cours-la-Reine, and reached my place at about eight
o'clock, just as I was waking. He used to scratch at the door, which was
opened for him, and he dashed joyously at me with yelps of joy, put his
paws on my knees, received with a modest and unassuming air the caresses
his noble conduct merited, took a look round the room, and started back
to Passy. On arriving there, he went to my mother, wagged his tail,
barked a little, and said as plainly as if he had spoken: "I have seen
young master; don't worry; he is all right." Having thus reported to the
proper person the result of his self-imposed mission, he would drink up
half a bowlful of water, eat his food, lie down on the carpet by my
mother's chair,--for he entertained peculiar affection for her,--and
sleep for an hour or two after his long run. Now, how do people who
maintain that animals do not think and are incapable of putting two and
two together explain this morning visit, which kept up family relations
and brought to the home-nest news of the fledgeling that had so recently
left it?

Poor Luther's end was very sad. He became taciturn, morose, and one fine
morning bolted from the house, feeling the rabies on him and resolved
not to bite his masters; so he fled, and we have every reason to believe
that he was killed as a mad dog, for we never saw him again.

After a pretty long interregnum a new dog was brought into the house. It
was called Zamore, and was a sort of spaniel, of very mixed breed, small
in size, with a black coat, save the ta