s for a few
days, the lion of all the first nights, had expressed a desire to see
the opening of the Salon. He was "an enlightened prince, a friend of
the arts," who possessed a gallery of amazing Turkish pictures on the
Bardo, and chromo-lithographic reproductions of all the battles of the
First Empire. The great Arabian hound had caught his eye as soon as he
entered the hall of sculpture. It was the _slougui_ to the life, the
genuine slender, nervous _slougui_ of his country, the companion of all
his hunts. He laughed in his black beard, felt the animal's loins,
patted his muscles, seemed to be trying to rouse him, while, with
dilated nostrils, protruding teeth, every limb outstretched and
indefatigable in its strength and elasticity, the aristocratic beast,
the beast of prey, ardent in love and in the chase, drunk with his
twofold drunkenness, his eyes fixed on his victim, seemed to be already
tasting the delights of his victory, with the end of his tongue hanging
from his mouth, as he sharpened his teeth with a ferocious laugh. If you
looked only at him, you said to yourself: "He has him!" But a glance at
the fox reassured you at once. Under his lustrous, velvety coat,
catlike, with his body almost touching the ground, skimming along
without effort, you felt that he was in truth a wizard, and his fine
head with its pointed ears, which he turned toward the hound as he ran,
had an ironical expression of security which clearly indicated the gift
he had received from the gods.

While an inspector of the Beaux-Arts, who had hurried to the spot, with
his uniform all awry, and bald to the middle of his back, explained to
Mohammed the apologue of "The Dog and the Fox," as told in the
catalogue, with this moral: "Suppose that they meet," and the note: "The
property of the Duc de Mora," the bulky Hemerlingue, puffing and
perspiring beside his Highness, had great difficulty in persuading him
that that masterly production was the work of the lovely equestrian they
had met in the Bois the day before. How could a woman with a woman's
weak hands so soften the hard bronze and give it the appearance of
flesh? Of all the marvels of Paris that one caused the bey the most
profound amazement. So he asked the official if there was nothing else
of the same artist's to see.

"Yes, indeed, Monseigneur, another _chef-d'oeuvre_. If your Highness
will come this way I will take you to it."

The bey moved on with his suite. They were all fine