You must feel alarmed during this hot weather at seeing the walls inscribed with “Death to poodle-dogs,” having yesterday, with your own hand, sent me adrift without either muzzle or collar. You knew that I wanted my liberty; I was indeed constrained to beg of you to let me go by what you would term “some subtle indescribable impulse.” To tell the truth, the conversation you carried on with your friends about Boileau, Aristotle, Smith’s last book, and the “five unities,” proved dull. I listened to you as long as I could, then yawned, and barked as if I heard some one at the door. Nothing would for one instant draw your attention from scientific discussion. You even pushed me off your knee just as you had clinched an argument by pointing out that the ancients were always the ancients. It was truly unkind of you to persist in remaining indoors when duty and inclination called me abroad. At last you let me go. I had found on the table an order for a stage-box in the Theatre of the Animals, a glorious place where they were only waiting for you and me. For two reasons I will refrain from writing down a full review of the play: first, because I am only a novice in the art; and secondly, because you, my master, gain your bread by descriptive writing. How could you. {89} cram your paper daily if you had not at hand all the stock phrases of dramatic criticism? As for myself, I feel rich in the mine of poesy that prompts every wag of my shaggy tail. I should be an ungrateful dog if I robbed you of your capital. Your imagination I have nothing to find fault with, seeing that your greatest successes, as a dramatic critic, were penned on plays you never took the trouble to witness. I made my way to the theatre on foot, for the weather was fine. I came across some agreeable acquaintances on the way, all going with their noses to the wind. The bulldog at the door respectfully inclined his head as I entered the box and threw myself carelessly into a chair, my right foot on the velvet cushion in front, and my legs resting on a couch. This graceful attitude you yourself assume when preparing to sit out, or sleep out, a five-act play. I had hardly been seated two minutes when the orchestra was invaded by musicians. These personages were the gayest to behold. The flute was played by a goose, while a donkey struck the harp—_asinus ad lyram_, wrote some erudite poet. A turkey clacked in E flat. The symphony began, and resembled those of which you speak so enthusiastically every winter. The curtain then rose, and my troubles as a critic commenced. [Illustration] It was a very solemn drama, written by a sort of greyhound, or {90} half-greyhound and half-bulldog, a half-English half-German animal, who had entered the Dogs’ Institute of Paris.