Bashan and I by Thomas Mann

When spring, which all men agree is the fairest season of the year, comes round again and happens to do honour to its name, I love to go for half an hour's stroll in the open air before breakfast. I take this stroll whenever the early chorus of the birds has succeeded in rousing me betimes -- because I had been wise enough to terminate the preceding day at a seemly hour. And then I go walking -- hatless -- in the spacious avenue in front of my house, and sometimes in the parks which are more distant. Before I capitulate to the day's work, I long to draw a few draughts of young morning air and to taste the joy of the pure early freshness of things. Standing on the steps which lead down from my front door, I give a whistle. This whistle consists of two tones, a base tone and a deeper quarter-tone -- as though I were beginning the first notes of the second phrase of Schubert's unfinished symphony, a signal which may be regarded as equal in tonal value to a name of two syllables.

The very next moment, as I go on towards the garden gate, a sound is heard in the distance, a sound at first almost inaudible, then growing rapidly nearer and clearer -- a sound such as might ensue if a metal tag were to be set clinking against the brass trimmings of a leather collar. Then, as I turn round, I see Bashan curving in swift career around the corner of the house and heading for me full tilt as though he intended to knock me over. His efforts cause him to shorten his underlip a bit, so that two or three of his lower front teeth are laid bare. How splendidly they gleam in the early sun!