Jules Verne For Children: 16 Incredible Tales of Mystery, Courage & Adventure (Illustrated Edition). Jules VerneЧитать онлайн книгу.
Hull, who had lost none of this little scene.
“But, sir,” said the novice, “is it not very astonishing that a dog should know the letters of the alphabet?”
“No!” cried little Jack. “Mama has often told me the story of a dog which knew how to read and write, and even play dominoes, like a real schoolmaster!”
“My dear child,” replied Mrs. Weldon, smiling, “that dog, whose name was Munito, was not a savant, as you suppose. If I may believe what has been told me about it, Munito would not have been able to distinguish the letters which served to compose the words. But its master, a clever American, having remarked what fine hearing Munito had, applied himself to cultivating that sense, and to draw from it some very curious effects.”
“How did he set to work, Mrs. Weldon?” asked Dick Sand, whom the history interested almost as much as little Jack.
“In this way, my friend.” When Munito was ‘to appear’ before the public, letters similar to these were displayed on a table. On that table the poodle walked about, waiting till a word was proposed, whether in a loud voice or in a low voice. Only, one essential condition was that its master should know the word.”
“And, in the absence of its master—” said the novice.
“The dog could have done nothing,” replied Mrs. Weldon, “and here is the reason. The letters spread out on the table, Munito walked about through this alphabet. When it arrived before the letter which it should choose to form the word required, it stopped; but if it stopped it was because it heard the noise—imperceptible to all others—of a toothpick that the American snapped in his pocket. That noise was the signal for Munito to take the letter and arrange it in suitable order.”
“And that was all the secret?” cried Dick Sand.
“That was the whole secret,” replied Mrs. Weldon. “It is very simple, like all that is done in the matter of prestidigitation. In case of the American’s absence, Munito would be no longer Munito. I am, then, astonished, his master not being there—if, indeed, the traveler, Samuel Vernon, has ever been its master—that Dingo could have recognized those two letters.”
“In fact,” replied Captain Hull, “it is very astonishing. But, take notice, there are only two letters in question here, two particular letters, and not a word chosen by chance. After all, that dog which rang at the door of a convent to take possession of the plate intended for the poor passers-by, that other which commissioned at the same time with one of its kind, to turn the spit for two days each, and which refused to fill that office when its turn had not come, those two dogs, I say, advanced farther than Dingo into that domain of intelligence reserved for man. Besides, we are in the presence of an inscrutable fact. Of all the letters of that alphabet, Dingo has only chosen these two: S and V. The others it does not even seem to know. Therefore we must conclude that, for a reason which escapes us, its attention has been especially drawn to those two letters.”
“Ah! Captain Hull,” replied the young novice, “if Dingo could speak! Perhaps he would tell us what those two letters signify, and why it has kept a tooth ready for our head cook.”
“And what a tooth!” replied Captain Hull, as Dingo, opening its mouth, showed its formidable fangs.
CHAPTER VI
A Whale in Sight.
It will be remembered that this singular incident was made, more 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 rising of the waters, and build their dams higher in consequence; those horses of Nicomedes, of Scanderberg, and of Oppien, whose grief was such that they died when their masters did; those asses, so remarkable for their memory, and many other beasts which have done honor to the animal kingdom. Have we not seen birds, marvelously erect, that correctly write words dictated by their professors; cockatoos that count, as well as a reckoner in the Longitude Office, the number of persons present in a parlor? Has there not existed a parrot, worth a hundred gold crowns, that recited the Apostle’s Creed to the cardinal, his master, without missing a word? Finally, the legitimate pride of an entomologist should be raised to the highest point, when he sees simple insects give proofs of a superior intelligence, and affirm eloquently the axiom: In minimis maximus Deus, those ants which, represent the inspectors of public works in the largest cities, those aquatic argyronetes which manufacture diving-bells, without having ever learned the mechanism; those fleas which draw carriages like veritable coachmen, which go through the exercise as well as riflemen, which fire off cannon better than the commissioned artillerymen of West Point? No! this Dingo does not merit so many eulogies, and if he is so strong on the alphabet, it is, without doubt, because he belongs to a species of mastiff, not yet classified in zoological science, the canis alphabeticus of New Zealand.”
In spite of these discourses and others of the envious entomologist, Dingo lost nothing in the public estimation, and continued to be treated as a phenomenon in the conversations of the forecastle.
All this time, it is probable that Negoro did not share the enthusiasm of the ship in regard to the animal. Perhaps he found it too intelligent. However, the dog always showed the same animosity against the head cook, and, doubtless, would have brought upon itself some misfortune, if it had not been, for one thing, “a dog to defend itself,” and for another, protected by the sympathy of the whole crew.
So Negoro avoided coming into Dingo’s presence more than ever. But Dick Sand had observed that since the incident of the two letters, the