as the back of my chair. Yet it will gratify you to know that a favourite cat keeps him in the greatest possible order, insists upon all rights of precedence, and scratches with impunity the nose of an animal who would make no bones of a wolf, and pulls down a red deer without fear or difficulty. I heard my friend set up some most piteous howls, and I assure you the noise was no joke, all occasioned by his fear of passing Puss, who had stationed himself on the stairs."
That other dogs were less forbearing than Maida, Hinse found to his cost, when Nimrod arrived to share the wide hospitality of Abbotsford. Maida's tolerance extended to all creatures, save deer, that he had been trained to hunt, and artists, whom he hated because of the weary hours spent in sitting for his portraits. The mere sight of a palette or a box of colours would send him yawning from the room. But Hinse's vanity was stimulated by having his picture hung on the library wall, and by the ever increasing respect and affection in which he was held. When his placid career came to its tragic close, Scott wrote to Richardson words of genuine regret.—"Alack-a-day! my poor cat, Hinse, my acquaintance, and, in some sort, my friend of fifteen years, was snapped at even by that paynim Nimrod. What could I say to him, but what Brantôme said to some ferrailleur who had
