Every day, after dinner, when the family and guests had assembled in the drawing-room, “Max” would insist upon giving his regular daily exhibition, and there was no peace from his importunities until he had completed the usual performance. His master always carried with him from the dinner table a biscuit which, in the drawing-room, he would hold up and say: “Max, I have a biscuit for you. Can’t you give us a little dance and a song?” Whereupon he would commence to turn around upon his hind feet, at the same time doing his best in the direction of singing a very doleful sort of a song, all the while looking exceedingly grave, the result of his abnormal effort. This part of the daily programme was so exceedingly comical that it always excited unbounded applause from the audience. The dance would go on until the master called out “enough,” when the performer would stop and look imploringly into his master’s face, as if asking him if he might continue the performance, which consisted of his master going through the motion of firing, accompanied with a noise which passed, in the doggish mind, for the explosion of a gun, and was a signal for the actor to fall down apparently dead, with eyes firmly closed, and keeping perfectly quiet. In this position he would remain until his master told him to come to life. The biscuit would then be given him, and that would end each day’s work, by which he, we may infer, believed he earned his daily bread.
With passing time my little friend took on the garb of age, and, a few years before his end, became totally blind, and among the most pathetic sights I ever witnessed were his attempts to see his friends. I had been so many times at his home that he had come to know me almost as one of the family, and at each visit, after his loss of sight, as the carriage drove up to the front door, when recognizing my voice, as I spoke to his master, he would put his paws upon the steps of the carriage and wag me a hearty welcome, at the same time trying his best to see me.
His career ended in November, 1883, when his master buried him near a garden gate, put a neat wire fence around his grave, and planted flowers over his remains. And now those who may chance to go to Toddington will find embedded into the garden wall a handsome marble slab, with a mortuary inscription and a verse composed by his kind master engraved upon it, which runs as follows:
“MAX
Died, November, 1883.
If ever dog deserved a tear
For fondness and fidelity,
That darling one lies buried here
Bemourned in all sincerity.”