I put on my old cloak and took my umbrella because it was pouring with rain. There was no one in the streets; I saw nothing but a few women with shawls over their heads and some Russian shopkeepers with umbrellas. There was no one of the upper classes about except an official like myself. I saw him at a crossing, and said to myself, “Aha! No, my friend, you’re not going to the Department; you’re running after the woman in front of you and looking at her ankles.” What a set of brutes our officials are! They’re just as bad as any officer; can’t see a woman’s hat at all without going for it. Just as I was thinking that, I saw a carriage driving up to a shop I was passing. I knew it at once; it was our director’s carriage. “But he wouldn’t be going shopping,” I thought; “it must be his daughter.” I stopped, and leaned against the wall; a footman opened the carriage door, and she sprang out like a bird. How she glanced round with those eyes and brows of hers! Heaven defend me! I am done for! And why ever should she drive out in this pouring rain? And then people say that women are not devoted to chiffons! She did not recognise me, and indeed I purposely muffled myself up, because my cloak was very muddy and old-fashioned too. Now they are worn with deep capes, and mine had little capes one above the other; and the cloth wasn’t good either. Her lap-dog didn’t get in before the shop-door was shut, and was left out in the street. I know that dog; it is called Medji. The next minute I suddenly heard a little voice, “Good-morning, Medji.” Why! what the deuce! Who said that? I looked round and saw two ladies under an umbrella, an old lady and a young one; but they went past; and suddenly I heard again, “Oh, for shame, Medji!” What the devil! There were Medji and the ladies’ lap-dog smelling each other. “I say,” thought I to myself, “I must be drunk!” And yet it is a rare thing with me to be drunk. “No, Fidèle, you are quite mistaken” (I actually saw Medji saying that). “I have been—bow-wow-wow—I have been—bow-wow-wow—very ill.” Well, there now! I really was very much surprised to hear the lap-dog talking in human speech. But afterwards, when I thought it over, it didn’t astonish me. Indeed, there have been many such cases in the world. It is said that there appeared in England a fish that said two words in such a strange language that the learned men have been three years trying to make out what it said, and can’t understand it yet. And I remember reading in the newspapers about two cows that went into a shop and asked for a pound of tea. But I was very much more astonished when Medji said, “I wrote to you, Fidèle; Polkàn can’t have brought the letter.” Well! may I lose my salary if ever I heard in my life that dogs could write! It quite amazed me. Lately, indeed, I have begun to see and hear sometimes things that nobody ever saw or heard before. “I’ll follow that lap-dog,” thought I, “and find out what it is and what it thinks.” So I shut up my umbrella