It was not indeed customary for me to return with the game-bag empty. "I was so anxious to see you, dear mother, that instead of shooting, I came the shortest way, by the high road." I lied. Had I spoken the truth, I should have said, "Alas! dear mother, I was so much taken up with thinking what effect my news would have upon you that I never thought of shooting, though at other times I have forgotten everything for that passion." But had I told her that, I should have had to tell her the news, and I wanted to delay it as long as possible. An incident freed me from embarrassment and diverted my mother's thoughts for the moment. I heard my dog howl. I ran to the door. The next house to ours was that of a butcher, called Mauprivez. In the front of the butcher's slab there was a long cross-bar of painted wood, in which at different intervals iron hooks were fixed to hold various specimens of meat. In jumping up at a calfs lights, Pyramus had got hooked like a carp on a fish-hook, and hung suspended. That was why he howled, and, as will readily be imagined, not without cause. I seized hold of him by the body, unhooked him, and he rushed into the stable, his jaws bleeding. If I ever write the history of the dogs that have belonged to me, Pyramus shall have a prominent place by the side of Milord. I may therefore be allowed to leave in suspense the interest my return naturally created, to talk a bit about Pyramus, who, in spite of his name, which indicated that all sorts of love misfortunes were before him, had never had, to my knowledge, any misadventures except gastronomic ones. Pyramus was a large chestnut-coloured dog, of very good French pedigree, who had been given me when quite a puppy, with a fox-cub of the same age, which the keeper who gave him me (it was poor Choron of la Maison-Neuve) had had suckled by the same mother. I often amused myself by watching the different instincts of these two animals develop, as they were placed opposite one another in the yard in two parallel recesses. For the first three or four months an almost brotherly intimacy reigned between Cartouche and Pyramus. I need not mention that Cartouche was the fox and Pyramus the dog. Nor need I mention that the name of Cartouche was given to the fox in allusion to his instincts of stealing and depredation. It was Cartouche who began to declare war on Pyramus, although he was the weaker looking; this declaration of war took place over some bones which were within Cartouche's boundary, but which Pyramus had surreptitiously tried to annex. The first time Pyramus attempted this piracy, Cartouche snarled; the second time, he showed his teeth; the third time, he bit. Cartouche was the more to be excused because he was always on the chain, while Pyramus had his hours of liberty. Cartouche, restrained to a very circumscribed walk, could not therefore, at full length of his chain, do unto Pyramus the evil deeds which Pyramus, abusing his liberty, was guilty of on his side.