He could run down a
rabbit in the open, and did it on many an occasion; but if this was
remarkable--a rabbit being reckoned one of the quickest of all animals
for a hundred yards--his curious behaviour exhibited itself in quite
another way. He was a dog of great character and cleverness, as well as
perfect manners. It was the custom in the family at that date to have
prayers on Sunday evenings. This Graf never failed to resent. There had
been service in the church during the day, and Sundays were dull days for
dogs: why have prayers in the evenings to make things worse? Therefore,
to show what he felt in the matter, no sooner had the family left the
room for prayers, than he gathered up the newspapers and tore them
deliberately to pieces. It was not only once or twice or even six times
that he did this. He did it repeatedly; and when the family returned,
_The Guardian_ especially was found in scraps upon the floor.

But he was otherwise a good dog, and so it was that he who read _The
Guardian_ week by week on Sunday evenings showed that he bore Graf no
resentment, for when the dog died he wrote a poem running thus, the last
line and a half of which are graven on Graf's stone:

"Can such fidelity be all for naught?
Is virtue less true virtue that it beats
In a hound's faithful breast? No, Graf, the thought
Of thy pure, true and faultless life defeats

All doubt. No! Virtue lives for ever, and the same,
Whether in man, or in his faithful friend
Who looked but could not speak his love. The flame
That warmed thy faithful heart can never end

In dark oblivion. If not a Soul
Is thine, at least is Life. The same great hand
Made thee and us; but where upon the scroll,
At day of Judgment, shall be found to stand

A human soul so faithful to the end,
So true as thou hast been? God's great design
Awaits both thee and us. Good-bye, sweet friend,
And may our lives be simply true as thine."

By way of parodying this, in the case of another dog, it was suggested by
one who was flippant that his epitaph might run--"And may our lives have
fewer faults than thine." But while it is true that this one had run up
quite a heavy bill in cats and committed many other enormities, the line
_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_ was kept in view, and, if nothing could be
said, it was judged