The Smuggler.
Whowould imagine that a dog had been made serviceable as a clerk, and thus made for his master upwards of a hundred thousand crowns? And yet an incident like this happened upwards of forty years since. One of those industrious beings who know how to live by skinning flints, determined, in extreme poverty, to engage in trade. He preferred that species of merchandise which occupied the least space, and was calculated to yield the greatest profit. He borrowed a small sum of money from a friend, and repairing to Flanders, he there bought pieces of lace, which he smuggled into France in the following manner.
He trained an active spaniel to his purpose. He caused him to be shaved, and procured for him the skin of another dog, of the same hair and the same shape. He then rolled his lace round the body of his dog, and put over it the garment of the stranger so adroitly, that it was impossible to discover the trick. The lace being thus arranged, he would say to his docile messenger, “Forward, my friend.” At the words, the dog would start, and pass boldly through the gates of Malines or Valenciennes, in the face of the vigilant officer placed there to prevent smuggling. Having thus passed the bounds, he would wait his master at a little distance in the open country. There they mutually caressed and feasted, and the merchant placed his rich packages in a place of security, renewing his occupation as occasion required. Such was the success of this smuggler that in less than five or six years he amassed a handsome fortune and kept his coach.
Envy pursues the prosperous. A mischievous neighbor at length betrayed the lace merchant; notwithstanding all his efforts to disguise the dog, he was suspected, watched, and discovered.
But the cunning of the dog was equal to the emergency. Did the spies of the custom-house expect him at one gate,—he saw them at a distance, and instantly ran to another. Were all the gates shut against him,—he overcame every obstacle; sometimes he leaped over the wall; at others, passing secretly behind a carriage or running between the legs of travellers, he would thus accomplish his aim. One day, however, while swimming a stream near Malines, he was shot, and died in the water. There was then about him five thousand crowns’ worth of lace—the loss of which did not afflict his master, but he was inconsolable for the loss of his faithful dog.