During the time that the student spends in these places, his dog is confined to his chamber. Here he fills up many hours with his dolorous lamentations, or at the window watches with envious impatience the passing of his brethren along the street, and challenges them with savage yells. Whether he avails himself of the books of his master to advance himself in science, we will not venture to say; yet we have ourselves seen them fly through the window of their abodes that were not at a great height from the ground, and seeking their masters in the College hall, there, as very attentive Hospitanters, stay out the remainder of the lecture. One of my friends had a white poodle, who was accustomed regularly to accompany him to the indifferently attended lectures of a certain professor, where he sat quietly on the bench by his side, and looked solemnly into the note-book of his master. One day the dog was absent, when the extremely short-sighted professor, in opening his lecture, remarked, "Gentlemen, it would be well if you all wore coats of one colour; and were they dark ones they would be not so much observed by me, but it struck me immediately that the gentleman in the white coat was absent to-day!" The great aptness of this creature to be taught, often furnishes the students with much entertainment. He readily learns to carry his master's stick and portfolio to the College hall, whence on his command, he returns quietly to the house. He is the best of chamber attendants, bringing in the morning his master's slippers and pipe. If he returns home at night rather inspirited by Bacchus, he accompanies him as a safe conductor, often bearing things which he has unwittingly dropt, after him.
A dog at one of the universities was well known as an excellent guide. He led his master home every evening; if he turned into a wrong street, he seized him by the coat, and pulled him back; if he fell down, he barked loudly till he rose again; and when they arrived at the house, the sagacious animal knew very well how to ring the bell.
They are also made use of in many a prank or piece of waggery. Thus it is said, that once in Leipsic, the students accustomed their dogs to the most frequent Christian names of the ladies of that city, and so soon as they came readily at that unusual call, the ungallant sons of the Muses allowed themselves the unpardonable joke of shouting aloud those names in the public walks, so that it is said, the fair sex in surprise quitted the field.
In one of the university cities, two dogs also furnished this spectacle. An order had been issued, that, to avoid any serious accidents from them, no students' dogs should appear in public except led in a band. Presently was seen a student with two dogs in cords. The one was a little pug scarcely two spans high, which was led in a rope about as thick as a man's arm, whilst the other, a huge and monstrous creature of the kind which the students call Doggen, apparently half mastiff, half bull-dog, stalked near it, led by a piece of twine.
We still see these creatures made co-workers in many a frolic. At the dinner table, in the public walk, in the fencing-school, and in the evening at the Kneip, every where must the dog attend his master. He must eat with him in the same house; the master, indeed, in the chamber, the dog in the kitchen; for which repast, however, is allowed on the dog's behalf two kreutzers a-day. Neither are combats wanting between them, whereby they may the more resemble their masters, and to which the masters, in fact, conduct them. In these dog-duels it goes often much worse than in those of their lords, for they seize each other so furiously that it is often difficult to separate them.
"The dog," says Linnæus, "remembers not with resentment the blows of his master." The student's dog is a striking example of the truth of this remark. How often, when the Bursche returns home from a drinking company, must this faithful servant do penance for the wild humours of the evening. It goes not better with him on such occasions than with many a poor German wife, who yet bears her lot with patience. She still loves her rough commander, even while he treats her with unmanly rudeness, and seeks to hide his weaknesses. So this true creature. Is his lord in danger? he defends him to the last, and often renders him the most signal services in skirmishes with the Knoten; yea, he hesitates not to attack the sacred person of the beadle. He is denied admittance to the duel, because he would speedily, as an uninvited second, spring between the combatants, and as some assert, on account of such accidents as the following. A duellist had his nose cut off, and a large bull-dog which was in the room--perhaps they had forgot to give him his dinner--greedily swallowed it; so greedily, that it was impossible to prevent it! Whether the unnosed Bursche had a new one made for him by Geheimrath Gräfe, or whether he afterwards wore a silver one, I am not prepared to say.
The student dog extends his student life far beyond that of his master, who turns him over into the hands of another on his own departure. It thus happens that many of these creatures travel from one hand to another, till, finally, they belong to no individual possessor but to a whole Chore, and live a free, unrestrained life. They then kneipe in rotation with the brethren of the Chore, all of whose dwellings they are acquainted with; and if they appear a little lost during the rest of the day, yet they are regularly found at the places of public meeting for social enjoyment. There was, for instance, the little Tambourlé here, which for many years lived only on sugar, which it received from the coffee-drinkers in a well-known coffee-house. At every fresh cup it demanded two or three pieces of sugar, as its established toll.
It is also gratifying to see, when these welcome guests are grown old and weak, how the other dogs receive them, and stand strictly by these Bemossed Heads when they are attacked by the vulgarer dogs of the streets. The cultivated dog is no longer a merely carnivorous animal, he has accustomed himself to a variety of food; but it is perhaps the peculiar characteristic of the student's dog that he drinks beer. Once used to it, it becomes his greatest enjoyment to empty a few choppins, and he seems not at all to dislike the phantasies of a half-fuddled state. To him by no means applies what Voigt has added to Linnæus's characteristic of the dog--"he draws himself back at the sight of a glass."
The son of the Muses can as little be without his pipe as his dog. The enjoyment which it affords him, is at once single and manifold. It embellishes his pleasures, it comforts him in trouble, it warms him in the cold, it cools him in the heat of summer. Should ennui seize him, he fills his pipe, turns to his study, and what a fulness of thought comes over him as he gazes into the clouds of smoke, which, curling up from his mouth, shape themselves into mysterious forms! There lies in it a power of inexhaustible reproduction. And how shall his wine and his beer smack without his pipe? In short, it is a discovery which wonderfully unites in itself all opposite qualities. With all the parts and attributes thereunto belonging, it constitutes, when displayed upon his walk, his room an armoury, which the tender hands of the ladies do not even disdain to embellish.