"Do I like it, my boy? Why I should be very hard to suit if I wasn't happy here; a pretty house, a lovely country, pleasant work, all the good things of life, and such a kind master, who keeps asking me if there is anything I want! Aren't you happy and content to be here yourself?" "Forgive me, mother, I am perfectly contented. We have been here a long time already, haven't we?" "A long time! Only nine days, my dear." "Only nine days! That is strange! It seems to me as if it was more than a month!" "Poor boy! Are you so terribly bored? Do you regret Paris?" "Oh, no! I don't regret Paris, mother! I don't think of Paris at all! But, although I have said that I would never step foot in Paris again, if you should happen to need anything, if you have left anything at our rooms that you miss, you must tell me so, mother; because it would take me only a short time to go and get it for you; and I will return at once, I won't stop an instant. It is such a little way from here to Paris, that I am sure it wouldn't take me three hours to go and come back!" "Thanks, my child, but I have no need to send you to Paris; I haven't left anything at home that I need; you won't have to take that trip." Georget said nothing more, but his face betrayed his disappointment; however, he dared not insist, for he feared that his mother would read what was going on in his heart. A few days later, Georget accosted Pongo, who was busily engaged in a dispute with a superb dahlia. "Whom are you talking with, Pongo?" "Who me talking with, Monsieur Georget; why, you see, with this fine flower, this lovely dahlia, with the little pink and white edges; but him naughty, not willing to stand straight, always hang his head. What a bad trick to hang his head, like a fox! You hear, flower? Hold up your head and look at the sun, or me will have something to say to you." "It seems to me that it's a long time since you went to Paris, Pongo! I thought that Monsieur Malberg used to send you there now and then?" "Yes, Monsieur Georget, master he send me to Paris when him have errands for me.--Oh! see little red flower over there hold his little head straight! Do you see, great coward, the little one stands better than you!" "And you have no errands in Paris just now?" "No, Monsieur Georget, and me very glad to stay here, where it's cool, not get tired travelling; though master, him always want me to take the carriage; but me not like the carriage; too crowded, dirty folks, not polite, make faces at Pongo! One day me going to fight a nurse who stuck out her tongue at me! Then driver come and make me get up on top with all the bundles!" "But that wasn't right, Pongo! What! you were going to fight with a nurse,--a woman!" "Why, she stuck her tongue out at me and call me gingerbread man." "So, Pongo, you don't like it when you have to go to Paris?"