From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition.  My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions.  I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets.  With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.  This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.  To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable.  There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own.  Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind.  We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.  In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise.  Not that she was ever serious upon this point — and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto — this was the cat’s name — was my favorite pet and playmate.  I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house.  It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character — through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance — had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse.  I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others.  I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife.  At length, I even offered her personal violence.  My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition.  I not only neglected, but ill-used them.  For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way.  But my disease grew upon me — for what disease is like Alcohol! — and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish — even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.