This he regularly did on subsequent occasions, without risking the
swim; and when on board, he always seated himself on the upper deck and
as far forward as possible, so as to catch early glimpses of his
friends in waiting.
Among the gifts of this clever animal, I must not forget to reckon a
perception of the truthful in Art. I had a walking-stick, upon the
crooked handle of which was carved, with tolerable skill, a pointer's
head. This piece of sculpture was a source of frequent anxiety to
Muff,--his embarrassment apparently arising from the circumstance of
his not having the gift of speech wherewith to deliver himself of an
opinion on the subject. He would sometimes get up from the sunny spot
on the carpet where he lay, walk over to the corner in which the stick
was deposited, contemplate the handle attentively, with his head on one
side, for several minutes, and then, shaking his head doubtfully,
return to his lair with a sigh. Philanthropist as well as critic, he
once saved the life of a dissipated old sergeant of dragoons, to whom
he had taken a fancy, by rushing into a house which the man had just
quitted in a state of intoxication, and so rousing the inmates by his
gestures, that they at once followed him into the road, alongside of
which the beery old _sabreur_ was found prostrate in a pool of water,
setting his face pertinaciously against that hostile element, even to
what was very near being his last gasp.
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