"Ah, my God!" Juliette exclaimed, hurriedly rising. "My Spy whom I left in my room! Shall I present Spy to you, Monsieur Mintié? Don't you know Spy?" She opened the door, drew aside the hangings, which were very wide. "Come, Spy!" she said coaxingly. "Where have you been, Spy? Come over here, poor thing!" And I saw a diminutive little animal, with a pointed snout, long ears, advancing, dancing on its thin paws that resembled a spider's legs and whose whole body, bent and skinny, quivered as though in fever. A ribbon of red silk, carefully tied on the side, encircled its neck in place of a collar. "Come on, Spy. Say hello to Monsieur Mintié!" Spy turned on me his round, stupid and cruel eyes which were on a level with his head, and barked viciously. "That's right, Spy. Now give your paw. Will you give me your paw? Come, now!" Juliette bent down and threatened the dog with her finger. Spy finally put his paw in his mistress' hand. She picked him up, patted and embraced him. "Oh! the dear little dog! Oh, darling dog! Oh, my love, my dearest Spy!" She sat up again, still holding the dog in her arms like a child, rubbing her cheek against the snout of the frightful beast, whispering caressing and endearing words into his ears. "Now show us that you are pleased, Spy! Show it to your little mammy!" Spy barked again, then licked the lips of Juliette who joyously abandoned herself to these odious caresses. "Ah, what a dear you are, Spy! Ah, how very, very nice you are!" And addressing herself to me, whom she seemed to have forgotten completely since Spy's unfortunate entry, she suddenly asked: "Do you like dogs, Monsieur Mintié?" "Very much, Madame," I answered. Then she told me, with a wealth of childish detail, the history of Spy, his habits, his urgent needs, his tricks, the scraps with the housekeeper who could not stand him. "But you ought to see him when he is asleep," she said to me. "You know he has a bed, sheets, an eiderdown coverlet, like a real person. Every night I put him to bed. And his little head looks so funny on it, all black. Aren't you very funny, Monsieur Spy?" Spy chose a comfortable place on Juliette's dress, and, after turning several times, rolled himself into a black lump, almost entirely lost in the cloth's silken folds. "That's it! By-by, Spy, my little baby!"