“This canine soul. An animal is, properly speaking, a soul; I do not say an immortal soul. And yet, when I come to consider the positions this poor little beast and I myself occupy in the scheme of things, I recognize in both exactly the same right to immortality.” After considerable hesitation, old Angélique, with a painful effort that made her upper lip curl up and reveal her two remaining teeth, said: “If Monsieur does not want a dog, I will return him to M. Dellion’s _chef_; but you may safely keep him, I assure you. You won’t see or hear him.” She had hardly finished her sentence when the puppy, hearing a heavy van rolling down the street, sat bolt upright on M. Bergeret’s knees, and began to bark both loud and long, so that the window-panes resounded with the noise. M. Bergeret smiled. “He is a watch-dog,” said Angélique, by way of excuse. “They are by far the most faithful.” “Have you given him anything to eat?” asked M. Bergeret. “Of course,” returned Angélique. “What does he eat?” “Monsieur must be aware that dogs eat bread and meat.” Somewhat piqued, M. Bergeret retorted that in her eagerness she might very likely have taken him away from his mother before he was old enough to leave her, upon which he was lifted up again and re-examined, only to make sure of the fact that he was at least six months old. M. Bergeret put him down on the carpet, and regarded him with interest. “Isn’t he pretty?” said the servant. “No, he is not pretty,” replied M. Bergeret. “But he is engaging, and has beautiful eyes. That is what people used to say about me,” added the professor, “when I was three times as old, and not half as intelligent. Since then I have no doubt acquired an outlook upon the universe which he will never attain. But, in comparison with the Absolute, I may say that my knowledge equals his in the smallness of its extent. Like his, it is a geometrical point in the infinite.” Then, addressing the little creature who was sniffing the waste-paper basket, he went on: “Smell it out, sniff it well, take from the outside world all the knowledge that can reach your simple brain through the medium of that black truffle-like nose of yours. And what though I at the same time observe, and compare, and study? We shall never know, neither the one nor the other of us, why we have been put into this world, and what we are doing in it. What are we here for, eh?” As he had spoken rather loudly, the puppy looked at him anxiously, and M. Bergeret, returning to the thought which had first filled his mind, said to the servant: “We must give him a name.” With her hands folded in front of her she replied laughingly that that would not be a difficult matter.