He loved and indulged him like a child, and something of selfishness entering into all ardent affections, Azor soon came to represent all humanity in his eyes. One day, to make him look fine, he fastened in the coarse hair of his neck a pink bow a young girl had dropped in the street, and told himself the dog was the handsomest beast alive. Slender greyhound, fleet-footed pointer, sturdy Newfoundland, none were a patch, in the eye of this partial judge, on the little ragged-haired, undersized mongrel he had introduced to his hearth and home. Azor had just as great an admiration for his master. Sitting up on his haunches in front of him, he would gaze into his face for hours together in a sort of ecstasy. Did he see him transmuted into something other than he was, or did the rough face, scored with its network of heavy wrinkles, from amid which the nose shone like a beacon-fire, embody for the wee doggie the beau-ideal of manly beauty? For my part, I think Azor beheld in it a beauty of a higher sort than the perishable beauty of the features; the old man, to be sure, was goodness incarnate, and is not goodness the highest form of beauty? They lived for one another. Azor yapped, and the old man talked, and between them they had wonderful fine dialogues; beginning in the garret, these were resumed in the street the days they took the air together. The pair might be seen marching side by side, the old man laughing, the dog laughing, too, in a way he had of his own. And so they wandered through the streets, in search of quiet, both taking little short steps. True, Azor was young still, and would have liked to dart on ahead; but his friend could not have kept up, and that was quite enough to make him adopt the peaceful gait of a dog who has ceased to care for the distractions of the roadside. But out in the fields you may be sure this sedateness was exchanged for wild excitement. Intoxicated by the open air, Azor would dash away, gambolling and wheeling and leaping like a mad creature, and performing a hundred tricks that mightily amused his good old master. II Azor had his little ways. Every morning he used to go down into the street to inspect the gutters and pay a visit to the dogs of the neighbourhood. He was always back in a quarter of an hour or so. But one day he did not return. His master waited patiently for him till midday. Animals are like men, and love to linger; perhaps he had met friends—and the old schoolmaster smiled indulgently at the notion. However, when half the afternoon was gone, and still Azor did not appear, he began to get anxious. Had some accident befallen him? and he thought of carriage wheels and horses’ hoofs and the rush and roar of the main streets. His first impulse was to rush to the stairs; but Azor might come back at any moment, so he stayed where he was, more dead than alive.