By mandate of law, Rick wore a muzzle, not often on his nose, but generally hanging under his chin. It was not because his present character was a vicious one that Rick was thus distinguished, but owing to an awkward circumstance in early life. For Rick had been tried in a court of law for the crime of murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. I believe Canton Grison is the only province in Switzerland where the law enforcing capital punishment has not been repealed; and in Canton Grison it applies to beasts as well as men.
Rick first appeared, a starveling puppy with a large frame and weak, shambling legs, before the windows of a charitable Scotswoman, who was a lover of dogs and a person of sensibility. Rick, whatever his intellectual shortcomings, was a shrewd judge of human nature, and knew where to find a sure welcome. Naturally he soon discovered the hour for meals, and seldom failed to be on hand in good season. Once he found the glass door shut through which he was accustomed to enter. Spectators on the other side saw his discomfiture, but, before they could reach the door, Master Rick had lifted the latch and was walking triumphantly in. A later friend of his declared that, when he asked, “What has become of that enormous dish of meat?” Rick tipped him an arch wink and touched his corpulent stomach with a hind paw. Another instance of his supposed intelligence was his habit of accompanying intending customers to the confectioner’s shop, where he gorged himself at their expense. This indulgence in sweets, and his visits to adjacent villages, where he dined at the hotels à la carte, his bills to be sent 35 to the Belvedere, induced early obesity, which was particularly observable in his great tail. I always thought the general belief in Rick’s mental capacity rested on insufficient grounds. I have lived too much with dogs not to know a dull fellow, though kindly, when I see him; but, as an individual, I loved Rick, and could not deny him a certain charm. The fact that one day Rick (who at that time belonged to a butcher) did not put in an appearance simultaneously with the ringing of the luncheon-bell caused the charitable Scotswoman misgivings. She should have known him better. Fortunately she happened to glance out of the window in the nick of time, for there was poor Rick, flat on his side, his head turned piteously towards the door of his friend, being dragged along the road at the tail of a terrible cart—the cart of a man who bought dead and living cats and dogs for the sake of their skins. A maid was hastily despatched to the rescue, and Rick was bought for the price of his hide. His trials were over (it was little he cared for the trial and sentence), for he was now adopted by the Hotel Belvedere.
Here he passed several uneventful, greedy years, until the day when the Belvedere was startled by the appearance of the officers of the law with an official document—a summons for Rick. How it was served I cannot imagine, but Rick was cited to appear, on a given date, at the Rathhaus, under the appellation of Tiger Hund. Tiger Hund was a fine, dashing name, but hardly applicable to Rick, who had more of the characteristics of the sheep than of the tiger. The two leading hotels, the Belvedere and the Bual, were shaken to their base by the threatened danger to Rick. Foreign counsel was appointed to plead his cause; I cannot now remember whether the chosen advocate was Herr Coester of the Belvedere, or Mr. J. Addington Symonds of the Bual. One, I know, appeared for Rick at the trial; while the other, after conviction, got up a petition for his pardon.