This trainer of
canary-birds, this architect of a pagoda for white mice, is (as
Sir Percival himself has told me) one of the first experimental
chemists living, and has discovered, among other wonderful
inventions, a means of petrifying the body after death, so as to
preserve it, as hard as marble, to the end of time. This fat,
indolent, elderly man, whose nerves are so finely strung that he
starts at chance noises, and winces when he sees a house-spaniel
get a whipping, went into the stable-yard on the morning after his
arrival, and put his hand on the head of a chained bloodhound--a
beast so savage that the very groom who feeds him keeps out of his
reach. His wife and I were present, and I shall not forget the
scene that followed, short as it was.
"Mind that dog, sir," said the groom; "he flies at everybody!" "He
does that, my friend," replied the Count quietly, "because
everybody is afraid of him. Let us see if he flies at me." And he
laid his plump, yellow-white fingers, on which the canary-birds
had been perching ten minutes before, upon the formidable brute's
head, and looked him straight in the eyes. "You big dogs are all
cowards," he said, addressing the animal contemptuously, with his
face and the dog's within an inch of each other.
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