"A man grandfather didn't know at all!" she would exclaim. "That's a likely story." None the less, she would be a little disturbed by the news, she would wish to have the details correctly, and so my grandfather would be summoned. "Who can it have been that you passed near the Pont-Vieux, uncle? A man you didn't know at all?" "Why, of course I did," my grandfather would answer; "it was Prosper, Mme. Bouilleboeuf's gardener's brother." "Ah, well!" my aunt would say, calm again but slightly flushed still; "and the boy told me that you had passed a man you didn't know at all!" After which I would be warned to be more careful of what I said, and not to upset my aunt so by thoughtless remarks. Everyone was so well known in Combray, animals as well as people, that if my aunt had happened to see a dog go by which she 'didn't know at all' she would think about it incessantly, devoting to the solution of the incomprehensible problem all her inductive talent and her leisure hours. "That will be Mme. Sazerat's dog," Françoise would suggest, without any real conviction, but in the hope of peace, and so that my aunt should not 'split her head.' "As if I didn't know Mme. Sazerat's dog!"--for my aunt's critical mind would not so easily admit any fresh fact. "Ah, but that will be the new dog M. Galopin has brought her from Lisieux." "Oh, if that's what it is!" "It seems, it's a most engaging animal," Françoise would go on, having got the story from Théodore, "as clever as a Christian, always in a good temper, always friendly, always everything that's nice. It's not often you see an animal so well-behaved at that age. Mme. Octave, it's high time I left you; I can't afford to stay here amusing myself; look, it's nearly ten o'clock and my fire not lighted yet, and I've still to dress the asparagus." "What, Françoise, more asparagus! It's a regular disease of asparagus you have got this year: you will make our Parisians sick of it." "No, no, Madame Octave, they like it well enough. They'll be coming back from church soon as hungry as hunters, and they won't eat it out of the back of their spoons, you'll see." "Church! why, they must be there now; you'd better not lose any time. Go and look after your luncheon."