Bruno seemed always to be in such good spirits that I never dreamed of anything happening to him; and his quiet, sympathetic companionship was one of the greatest blessings I knew throughout many weird and terrible years.

As I talked to him he would sit at my feet, looking so intelligently at me that I fancied he understood every word of what I was saying.
When the religious mania was upon me, I talked over all sorts of theological subjects with my Bruno, and it seemed to relieve me, even though I never received any enlightenment from him upon the knotty point that would be puzzling me at that particular time.

What delighted him most of all was for me to tell him that I loved him very dearly, and that he was even more valuable to me than the famous dogs of St.Bernard were to benighted travellers in the snow.
I knew very little about musical instruments, but as I had often longed for something to make a noise with, if only to drown the maddening crash of the eternal surf, I fashioned a drum out of a small barrel, with sharks' skin stretched tightly over the open ends.

This I beat with a couple of sticks as an accompaniment to my singing, and as Bruno occasionally joined in with a howl of disapproval or a yell of joy, the effect must have been picturesque if not musical.

I was ready to do almost anything to drown that ceaseless cr-ash, cr-ash of the breakers on the beach, from whose melancholy and monotonous roar I could never escape for a single moment throughout the whole of the long day.