HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
failed to throw them stealthily some fragments, which 
sent them away satisfied. 
“This they knew perfectly well. One day, a new 
guest, lean, bristling, unprepossessing, something be- 
tween a dog and a wolf, arrived; he was, in fact, a 
half-breed of the two species, born in the forests of the 
Gresigne. He was very ferocious, very irascible, and 
bore much too close a resemblance to his wolfish 
mother. But, besides this, he was intelligent, and 
gifted with a very keen instinct. From the first he 
gave himself wholly up to my father, and neither 
words nor rough usage could induce him to quit his 
side. For us he had but little love; and we repaid 
him in kind, seizing every opportunity of playing him 
a hundred tricks. He ground and gnashed his teeth, 
though, out of regard for my father, he abstained 
from devouring us. To the poor he was furious, im- 
placable, very dangerous; which decided us on suffer- 
ing him to be lost. But there was no such chance. 
He always came back again. His new masters would 
chain him to a post; chains and post, he carried them 
all off, and brought them into our house. It was too 
much for my father; he would never forsake him. 
“But the cats enjoyed even more of his good graces 
than the dogs. This was due to his early education, 
to the cruel years spent at college; his brother and 
himself, beaten and repulsed, between the harshness of 
their home and the severities of their school, had found 
a consolation in a couple of cats. This predilection 
was transmitted to his family—each of us, in childhood, 
possessed our cat. The gathering at the fireside was 
