than
once, the subject of conversation held in the stern of the "Pilgrim"
between Mrs. Weldon, Captain Hull, and the young novice. The latter,
more particularly, experienced an instinctive mistrust with regard to
Negoro, whose conduct, meanwhile, merited no reproach.

In the prow they talked of it also, but they did not draw from it the
same conclusions. There, among the ship's crew, Dingo passed merely for
a dog that knew how to read, and perhaps even write, better than more
than one sailor on board. As for talking, if he did not do it, it was
probably for good reasons that he kept silent.

"But, one of these fine days," says the steersman, Bolton, "one fine
day that dog will come and ask us how we are heading; if the wind is to
the west-north-west-half-north, and we will have to answer him! There
are animals that speak! Well, why should not a dog do as much if he
took it into his head? It is more difficult to talk with a beak than
with a mouth!"

"No doubt," replied the boatswain, Howik. "Only it has never been
known."

It would have astonished these brave men to tell them that, on the
contrary, it had been known, and that a certain Danish servant
possessed a dog which pronounced distinctly twenty words. But whether
this animal comprehended what he said was a mystery. Very evidently
this dog, whose glottis was organized in a manner to enable him to emit
regular sounds, attached no more sense to his words than do the
paroquets, parrots, jackdaws, and magpies to theirs. A phrase with
animals is nothing more than a kind of song or spoken cry, borrowed
from a strange language of which they do not know the meaning.

However that might be, Dingo had become the hero of the deck, of which
fact he took no proud advantage. Several times Captain Hull repeated
the experiment. The wooden cubes of the alphabet were placed before
Dingo, and invariably, without an error, without hesitation, the two
letters, S and V, were chosen from among all by the singular animal,
while the others never attracted his attention.

As for Cousin Benedict, this experiment was often renewed before him,
without seeming to interest him.

"Meanwhile," he condescended to say one day, "we must not believe that
the dogs alone have the privilege of being intelligent in this manner.
Other animals equal them, simply in following their instinct. Look at
the rats, who abandon the ship destined to founder at sea; the beavers,
who know how to foresee the ri