That is how the well-informed journal gossiped and fed the public curiosity. It also reported carefully the visits which Miss Imma kindly paid with her companion to several of the charitable institutions of the town. Yesterday she had made a detailed inspection of the public kitchens. To-day she had made a prolonged tour of the Trinity Almhouses for old women, and she had recently twice attended Privy Councillor Klinghammer's lectures on the theory of numbers at the university--had sat on the bench, a student among students, and scribbled away with her fountain-pen, for everybody knew that she was a learned girl and devoted to the study of algebra. Yes, all that was absorbing reading, and furnished ample food for conversation. But the topics which made themselves talked about without any help from the _Courier_ were, firstly, the dog, that noble black-and-white collie which the Spoelmanns had brought with them, and secondly, in a different way, the companion, Countess Löwenjoul. As for the dog, whose name was Percival, generally shortened to Percy, he was an animal of so excitable and emotional a disposition as beggared description. Inside the hotel he afforded no grounds for complaint, but lay in a dignified attitude on a small carpet outside the Spoelmanns' suite. But every time he went out he had an attack of light-headedness, which caused general interest and surprise, indeed more than once actual obstruction of traffic. Followed at a distance by a swarm of native dogs, common curs which, incited by his demeanour, assailed him with censorious yaps, and which caused him no concern whatever, he flew through the streets, his nose spattered with foam and barking wildly, pirouetted madly in front of the tramcars, made the cab-horses stumble, and twice knocked Widow Klaaszen's cake stall at the Town Hall down so violently that the sugar cakes rolled half over the Market-place. But as Mr. Spoelmann or his daughter at once met such catastrophes with more than adequate compensation, as too it was discovered that Percival's attacks were really quite free from danger, that he was anything but inclined to bite and steal, but on the contrary kept to himself and would let nobody come near him, public opinion quickly turned in his favour, and to the children in particular his excursions were a constant source of pleasure.