BILLY AND HANS 



strangers, he climbed over me with 

 perfect nonchalance. Billy, on the 

 contrary, refused freedom, and when 

 I took him out into his native woods 

 he ran about a little, and came back 

 to find his place in my pocket as 

 naturally as if it had been his birth- 

 nest. But the apparent yearning of 

 Hans for liberty was to me an exqui- 

 site pain. He would get up on the 

 window-bench, looking out one way 

 on the rushing Rhine, and the other on 

 the stretching pine forest, and stand 

 with one paw on the sash and the 

 other laid across his breast, and turn 

 his bright black eyes from one to the 

 other view incessantly, and with a 

 look of passionate eagerness which 

 made my heart ache. If I could have 

 found a friendly park where he could 

 have been turned loose in security 

 from hunger, the danger of hunting 



