exactly and modulated
with a flute-like sound phrases that were really musical and that had no
connection whatever with barking or yelping. When we wanted to make him
go on, all we had to do was to say, "Sing a little more," and he would
repeat the cadence. Although he was fed with the utmost care, as was
proper in the case of a tenor singer and so distinguished a gentleman,
Kobold had one eccentric taste: he would eat earth just like a South
American savage. We never succeeded in curing him of the habit, which
proved the cause of his death. He was very fond of the stablemen, the
horses, and the stable, and my ponies had no more constant companion
than he. He spent his time between their loose-boxes and the piano.

After Kobold, the King Charles, came Myrza, a tiny Havana poodle that
had the honour of being for a time the property of Giulia Grisi, who
gave her to me. She is snow-white, especially when she is fresh from her
bath and has not had time to roll over in the dust, a fancy some dogs
share with dust-loving birds. She is extremely gentle and affectionate,
and as sweet-tempered as a dove. Her little fluffy face, her two little
eyes that might be mistaken for upholstery nails, and her little nose
like a Piedmont truffle, are most comical. Tufts of hair, curly as
Astrakhan fur, fall over her face in the most picturesque and unexpected
way, hiding first one eye and then the other, so that she has the most
peculiar appearance imaginable and squints like a chameleon.

In Myrza, nature imitates the artificial so perfectly that the little
creature looks as if she had stepped out of a toy-shop. When her coat is
nicely curled, and she has got on her blue ribbon bow and her silver
bell, she is the image of a toy dog, and when she barks it is impossible
not to wonder whether there is a bellows under her paws.

She spends three-fourths of her time in sleep, and her life would not be
much changed were she stuffed, nor does she seem particularly clever in
the ordinary intercourse of life. Yet she one day exhibited an amount of
intelligence absolutely unparalleled in my experience. Bonnegrace, the
painter of the portraits of Tchoumakoff and E. H., which attracted so
much attention at the exhibitions, had brought to me, in order to get my
opinion upon it, one of his portraits painted in the manner of Pagnest,
remarkable for truthfulness of colour and vigour of modelling. Although
I have lived on terms of closest intimacy with an