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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 tan spots over his eyes and the tan hair on his stomach. On the whole he was insignificant physically, and ugly rather than handsome; but morally, he was a remarkable dog. He absolutely despised women, would not obey them, never would follow them, and never once did my mother or my sisters manage to win from him the least sign of friendship or deference. He would accept their attentions and the tit-bits they gave him with a superior air, but never did he express any gratitude for them. Never would he yelp, never would he rap the floor with his tail, never bestow on them a single one of those caresses dogs are so fond of lavishing. He remained impassible in a sphinx-like pose, like a serious man who will not take part in the conversation of frivolous persons. The master he had elected was my father, in whom he acknowledged the authority of the head of the house, and whom he considered a mature and serious man. But his affection for him was austere and stoical, and was not shown by gambadoes, larks, and lickings. Only, he always kept his eyes upon him, followed his every motion and kept close to heel, never allowing himself the smallest escapade or the least nod to any passing comrades. My dear and lamented father was a great fisherman before the Lord, and he caught more barbels than Nimrod ever slew antelopes. It certainly could not be said of his fishing-rod that it was a pole and string with a worm at one end and a fool at the other, for he was a very clever man, and none the less he daily filled his basket with fish. Zamore used to accompany him on his trips, and during the long night-watches entailed by ground-line fishing for the big fellows, he would stand on the very edge of the water, apparently trying to fathom its dark depths and to follow the movements of the prey. Although he often pricked up his ears at the faint and distant sounds that, at night, are heard in the deepest silence, he never barked, having understood that to be mute is a quality indispensable in a fisherman’s dog. In vain did Phoebe’s alabaster brow show above the horizon reflected in the sombre mirror of the river; Zamore would not bay at the moon, although such prolonged ululation gives infinite delight to creatures of his species. Only when the bell on the set-line tinkled did he look at his master and allow himself one short bark, knowing that the prey was caught; and he appeared to take the greatest interest in the manoeuvres involved in the landing of a three or four pound barbel.

No one would have suspected that under his calm, abstracted, philosophical look, this dog, so serious that he was almost melancholy, and despised all frivolity, nursed an overmastering, strange, never to be suspected passion, absolutely contrary to his apparent moral and physical character.

“You do not mean,” I hear my reader exclaim, “that the good Zamore had hidden vices?–that he was a thief?” No. “A libertine?” No. “That he loved brandied cherries?” No. “That he bit people?” Never. Zamore was crazy about dancing. He was an artist devoted to the choregraphic art.

He became conscious of his vocation in the following manner. One day there appeared on the square at Passy a gray moke, with sores on its back, and drooping ears, one of those wretched mountebanks’ asses that Decamps and Fouquet used to paint so well. The two baskets balanced on either side of his raw and prominent backbone contained a troupe of trained dogs, dressed as marquesses, troubadours, Turks, Alpine shepherdesses, or Queens of Golconda, according to their sex. The impresario put down the dogs, cracked his whip, and suddenly every one of the actors forsook the horizontal for the perpendicular position, and transformed itself into a biped. The drum and fife started up and the ballet commenced.