196 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



barked just as many times as the hand marked 

 hours." 



1 'That is capital, I declare!" 



"But there is still better coming. I know of a 

 barbet that plays domino s with its master, and the 

 master does not always win, either. As such talents 

 are exercised by bread-winning barbets for those 

 who show them off, I am inclined to believe that the 

 dog's intelligence is aided in the game by some signs 

 from the master that pass unperceived by the spec- 

 tators. No matter : there is enough to confound our 

 poor reasoning powers in the calculating faculty of 

 the animal as it counts its points, makes out those 

 of its adversary, and as a result pushes the proper 

 domino with the end of its nose. 



"To his intellectual faculties Sheep adds, in a 

 high degree, the faculties of the heart, which are 

 still more to be desired. Sheep is the blind man's 

 dog and guides him patiently, avoiding every ob- 

 stacle, through the crowd by means of a string at- 

 tached to the animal's collar. When the master 

 stands on the street-corner, begging pity with his 

 shrill clarinet, Sheep, seated in a suppliant posture, 

 holds the wooden bowl in his teeth and offers it to 

 the passers-by. If the master dies, the dear master 

 who shared the crust of bread with him like a 

 brother, Sheep follows the coffin, lonely, sad, pitiful 

 to see. He crouches on the mound that covers his 

 master, pines there for a few days, and finally falls 

 asleep there in the sleep of death. By what name 

 should such a devoted creature be called? The blind 



