"Surely it--he--is too small to require a great deal," said Lady Vivian languidly. Lap-dogs bored her very much indeed, and she turned away her eyes after taking one rather disgusted look at the recumbent Puff through her eyeglasses. "Train up a dog in the way it should go. Now, this little fellah--you'd hardly believe it, Lady Vivian, if I were to tell you the difference in him after he's had a good run over the Common." "Lewis!" cried Lesbia, opening her eyes to an incredible extent, as was her wont whenever she wished to emphasize her words. "I _can't_ have you boring people about Puff. Lewis is a perfect slave to Puffles, and tries to hide it by calling him 'the dog' and talking about his training." Lewis looked self-conscious, and immediately said: "Not at all; not at all. But the dog is an intelligent little brute. Now, I'll tell you what happened the other day." Major Willoughby gave various instances of Puff's discrimination, and Lesbia kissed the top of Puff's somnolent head and exclaimed shrilly at intervals that "it was too, too bad to pay the little treasure so many compliments; it would turn his little fluffy head, it would." Lady Vivian reflected that she might certainly absolve herself from the charge of contributing to this catastrophe. The language of compliment had seldom been further from her lips; but in any case her visitors left her little of the trouble of sustaining conversation. It was evident that Puff was a recent acquisition in the Willoughby _ménage_. "Where's your dear girl?" Lesbia presently inquired fondly of her hostess. "In Questerham, at the Depôt." "Now, Joanna, I'm going to be perfectly candid. You won't mind, I know--after all, you and I were girls together. What Char needs, my dear, is _flogging_." Lady Vivian was conscious of distinct relief at the thought that her secretary did not happen to be within earshot of this startling expression of opinion. "You are certainly being perfectly candid, Lesbia," she said dryly. "What has poor Char been doing to require flogging, may I ask?" "You ask me that, Joanna! Lewis, hark at her!" Lewis, thus appealed to, looked very uncomfortable, and said in a non-committal manner: "H'm, yes, yes. Hi! Puff!--good dog, sir!" thus rousing the Pekinese to a fresh outburst of ear-piercing barks. When this had at length been quelled by the blandishments of Lesbia and the words of command repeatedly given in a martial tone by her husband, Lady Vivian repeated her inquiry, and Mrs. Willoughby replied forcibly: "My dear, nothing but flogging would ever bring her to her senses. The way she's treating you and poor dear Sir Piers! He's looking iller and older every day, and tells me himself that he never sees her now; it's too piteous to hear him, dear old thing. It would wring tears from a stone--wouldn't it, Lewis?" "Down, sir, down, I say!" was the reply of Major Willoughby, addressed to the investigating Puff.