“One could use them like a handkerchief to wipe the animal’s nose and eyes,” Emile interposed.
“The beagle stands very low on its legs. Moreover, [[207]]its legs, especially the fore legs, are contorted, crippled in appearance. One would say that the dog had undergone some violent strain from which it had not entirely recovered. Its head, its large and drooping ears, its short hair, are almost the same as the hound’s. The beagle is also an ardent hunter, the willing companion of him who, gun on shoulder, tramps over the rocky hills beloved by rabbits. With its short and twisted legs it trots rather than runs; but its slowness is more deadly to its victim than speed, for it allows the game to play and loiter in seeming security before it. Without suspecting the approach of the insidious enemy Jack Rabbit gambols and curls his mustache, and already the beagle is face to face with him, transfixing him with sudden terror. The shot is fired: all is over with Jack, who leaps into the air and falls back inert on the wild thyme.”
“Poor Jack, so treacherously surprised! Now the hound does at least announce itself and let the rabbit scamper away as quick as it can. It is a contest of speed between the two. But the dumpy beagle creeps through the bushes and pops out all of a sudden.”
“The beagle has not its equal for routing out the fox from its hole. Its gait, which is almost a crawl, enables it to penetrate the farthest corners of the fox’s abode. If it finds the malodorous animal there, it gives voice and holds the place with tooth and nail while allowing the hunters time to break into the fox-hole and capture the chicken-stealer. [[208]]
“The wolf-dog is the teamster’s favorite. A thousand times you have seen it, petulant and wrathful, running back and forth on the top of a loaded wagon and barking from the top of this fortress at the children teasing it below. It is superb in its anger, with its little leonine mane, its plumy tail tightly rolled in a corkscrew, and its pretty red collar with bells and fox-hair fringe. It has erect, pointed ears like the shepherd dog’s, slender muzzle, hair short on the head and paws, long and silky on the rest of the body. No dog knows better how to curl its tail and hold it proudly.”
“Is that all it knows how to do?” asked Louis.
“The wolf-dog is too intelligent not to have other merit than its pretty ways. Loubet (that is commonly its name) knows, if need be, how to turn the spit by means of a revolving drum in which it jumps continually, as does the squirrel in its rotary cage. If it has the companionship of a good shepherd dog, it easily learns the latter’s calling and becomes a pretty good flock-tender.”
“That is better than raging on the top of a wagon and barking at the passers-by,” was Louis’s comment.
“I do not know,” resumed Uncle Paul, “a more repulsive, brutal physiognomy than that of the bulldog. Look at its head, massive and short, with thick muzzle and flat nose, sometimes split; its heavy upper lip hanging down on each side and dripping with saliva, while the front teeth are exposed to view; its small eyes, with their hard expression; its ears [[209]]torn by bites or made uglier by cropping;—think of all these marks of a brutal nature and tell me for what sort of occupation the bulldog is properly fitted.”
“Its occupation,” answered Jules, “is read in its gross physiognomy: the bulldog is made for fighting.”