Hamlet was, of course, in no way deceived by these flatteries. He knew his world. He watched even his friend Pompey with a good deal of irony. He would have supposed that his friend was too well-bred to care what these poor creatures should say to him; nevertheless Pompey was more pleased than he should have been. He sat there, round the corner, just by the monument, and received the homage with a pleasure that was most certainly not forced. He was himself a little conscious of this. “Awful bore,” he explained afterwards to Hamlet, “having to listen to all they had to say. But what’s one to do? One can’t be rude, you know. One doesn’t want to be impolite. And I must say they were very kind.” Hamlet was now restored into the best Orange Street society—all received him back—all with one very important exception. This was a white poodle, the pride and joy of a retired military colonel who lived at 41 Orange Street, and his name was Mephistopheles—Mephisto for short. Ever since Hamlet’s first introduction to the Cole family he and this dog had been at war. Mephisto was not a dog of the very highest breed, but his family was quite good enough. And then, being French, he could say a good deal about his origins and nobody could contradict him. He did not, as a fact, say very much. He was too haughty to be talkative, too superior to be familiar. He had no friends. There _was_ a miserable Dachs, Fritz by name, who claimed to be a friend, but everyone knew how Mephisto laughed at Fritz when he was not there, calling him opprobrious names and commenting on his German love of food. From the very first Mephisto had seemed to Hamlet an indecent dog. The way that he was here naked and there over-hairy had nothing to be said for it. His naked part was quite pink. Then Mephisto had the French weakness of parsimony. Never was there a meaner dog. He stored bones as no dog had a right to do, and had never been known to give anything to anybody. Then he had the other French weakness of an incapacity for friendship. The domestic life might perhaps appeal to him strongly (no one knew whether he were married or not), but friendship meant nothing to him. He was as are all the French, practical, unsentimental, seeing life as it really is and allowing no nonsense. If he had those French defects he had also the great French virtue of courage. He was afraid of nothing and of no one. No dog was too big for him, and he once had a fight with a St. Bernard who happened to stroll down his way that was historic. He was no coward, as Hamlet very well knew—but how Hamlet hated him! All his fur bristled if Mephisto was within half a mile. Mephisto’s superior smile, his contempt at the rather sentimental enthusiasms to which Hamlet occasionally gave vent (that went, as they often do, with his cynicism), these made a conflict inevitable. II