"Don-Pierrot-de-Navarre, who came from Havana, required a hothouse
temperature: and this he always had in his own apartments. The house
was, however, surrounded by extensive gardens, divided by railings,
through and over which cats could easily climb, and in those gardens
were trees inhabited by a great number of birds. Pierrot would
frequently take advantage of an open door to get out of an evening and
go a-hunting through the wet grass and flower-beds: and, as his mewing
under the windows when he wanted to get in again did not always awaken
the sleepers in the house, he frequently had to stay out until morning.
His chest was delicate, and one very chilly night he caught a cold which
rapidly developed into phthisis. At the end of a year of coughing, poor
Don Pierrot had wasted to a skeleton, and his coat, once so silky, was a
dull, harsh white. His large, transparent eyes looked unnaturally large
in his shrunken face: the pink of his little nose had faded, and he
dragged himself slowly along the sunny side of the wall with a
melancholy air, looking at the yellow autumnal leaves as they danced and
whirled in the wind. Nothing is so touching as a sick animal: it submits
to suffering with such gentle and sad resignation. We did all in our
power to save Pierrot: a skilful doctor came to see him, felt his pulse,
sounded his lungs, and ordered him ass's milk. He drank the prescribed
beverage very readily out of his own especial china saucer.
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