Prince Ivan, whose transient moodiness had passed away like a bad devil exorcised by the power of good wine, joined heartily in the praise bestowed on this four-footed friend of the family.

“It was really through Leo,” he said, “that you were induced to follow out your experiments in human electricity, Casimir, was it not?”

“Yes,” replied Heliobas, calling the dog, who went to him immediately to be fondled.  “I should never have been much encouraged in my researches, had he not been at hand.  I feared to experimentalize much on my sister, she being young at the time—­and women are always frail of construction—­but Leo was willing and ready to be a victim to science, if necessary.  Instead of a martyr he is a living triumph—­are you not, old boy?” he continued, stroking the silky coat of the animal, who responded with a short low bark of satisfaction.

My curiosity was much excited by these remarks, and I said eagerly: 

“Will you tell me in what way Leo has been useful to you?  I have a great affection for dogs, and I never tire of hearing stories of their wonderful intelligence.”

“I will certainly tell you,” replied Heliobas.  “To some people the story might appear improbable, but it is perfectly true and at the same time simple of comprehension.  When I was a very young man, younger than Prince Ivan, I absorbed myself in the study of electricity—­its wonderful powers, and its various capabilities.  From the consideration of electricity in the different forms by which it is known to civilized Europe, I began to look back through history, to what are ignorantly called ‘the dark ages,’ but which might more justly be termed the enlightened youth of the world.  I found that the force of electricity was well understood by the ancients—­better understood by them, in fact, than it is by the scientists of our day.  The ‘Mene, Mene, TEKEL, UPHARSIN’ that glittered in unearthly characters on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, was written by electricity; and the Chaldean kings and priests understood a great many secrets of another form of electric force which the world to-day scoffs at and almost ignores—­I mean human electricity, which we all possess, but which we do not all cultivate within us.  When once I realized the existence of the fact of human electric force, I applied the discovery to myself, and spared no pains to foster and educate whatever germ of this power lay within me.  I succeeded with more ease and celerity than I had imagined possible.  At the time I pursued these studies, Leo here was quite a young dog, full of the clumsy playfulness and untrained ignorance of a Newfoundland puppy.  One day I was very busy reading an interesting Sanskrit scroll which treated of ancient medicines and remedies, and Leo was gambolling in his awkward way about the room, playing with an old slipper and worrying it with his teeth.  The noise he made irritated and disturbed me, and I rose in my chair and called him by name,