Kindly but firmly Bashan’s master imposed upon him on the day following—it was about noon—the leathern muzzle—that mask of stubborn meshes which Bashan loathes above all things and of which he always seeks to rid himself by violent shakings of his head and furious rubbings of his paws. He was fastened to the braided leash and thus harnessed was led up the avenue—on the left-hand side—then through the local park and a suburban street into the group of buildings belonging to the High School. We passed beneath the portal and crossed the courtyard. We then entered a waiting-room, against the walls of which sat a number of persons all of whom, like myself, held a dog on a leash—dogs of different breeds and sizes, who regarded one another with melancholy eyes through their leather muzzles. There was an old and motherly dame with her fat and apoplectic pug, a footman in livery with a tall and snow-white Russian deerhound, who emitted from time to time a dry and aristocratic cough; a countryman with a _dachshund_—apparently a case for orthopedic science, since all his feet were planted upon his body in the most crooked and distorted manner, and many others. The attendant at this veterinary clinic admitted the patients one after the other into the adjoining consulting-room. At length the door to this was also opened for me and Bashan. The Professor was a man of advanced age, and was clad in a long, white operating coat. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, his head was crowned with gray curls and his whole manner was so amiable and conveyed such an air of wise kindliness that I would immediately have entrusted myself and my family to him in any emergency. Whilst I gave him my account of things, he smiled paternally upon his patient, who sat there in front of him and turned up to him a pair of humble and trustful eyes. “He’s got fine eyes,” said the doctor, without allowing Bashan’s hybrid goatee to disturb him, and declared that he was ready to make an investigation at once. Bashan, quite helpless with astonishment, was now, with the aid of the attendant, spread upon the table. It was moving to see how the old doctor applied the stethoscope to the breast of the tiger-striped little manikin and performed his auscultation, just as I had seen it done in my case more than once. He listened to the swift workings of the tiny canine heart, and sounded his entire organic internal functions from different points of his exterior. Hereupon, tucking his stethoscope under his arm, he began to examine Bashan’s eyes with both hands, his nose as well as the roof of his mouth, and then ventured upon delivering a preliminary prognosis.