greet me.

I noticed that the exertion of greeting me made him short of breath, and
that he held his free hand for a second pressed against his heart as he
ushered me across his threshold and into a cool, old-fashioned sitting
room, the walls covered with steel engravings, the furniture upholstered
in green rep.

"Have the goodness to be seated, monsieur," he insisted, waving me to an
armchair, while he regained his own, back of an old-fashioned desk.

"Ah! The--little--dog," he began, slowly regaining his breath. "You are
all the time shooting, and I heard you wanted one. It is so difficult to
get a really--good--dog--in this country. Francois!" he exclaimed, "You
may bring in the little dog--and, Francois!" he added, as the boy
servant turned to go--"bring glasses and a bottle of Musigny--you will
find it on the shelf back of the Medoc." Then he turned to me: "There
are still two bottles left," and he laughed heartily.

"Bien, monsieur," answered the boy, and departed with a key big enough
to have opened a jail.

The moment had arrived for me to draw forth a louis, which I laid on his
desk in accordance with an old Norman custom, still in vogue when you
accept as a gift a dog from an estate.

"Let your domestics have good cheer and wine to-night," said I.

"Thank you," he returned with sudden formality. "I shall put it aside
for them," and he dropped the gold piece into a small drawer of his
desk.

I did not know until Pierre, who was waiting outside in the court, told
me afterwards, that his entire staff of servants was composed of the boy
with the blue apron and the cook--an old woman--the last of his faithful
servitors, who now appeared with a tray of trembling glasses, followed
by the boy, the dusty cobwebbed bottle of rare Musigny and--my dog!

Not a whole dog. But a flub-dub little spaniel puppy--very blond--with
ridiculously long ears, a double-barrelled nose, a roly-poly stomach and
four heavy unsteady legs that got in his way as he tried to navigate in
a straight line to make my acquaintance.

"_Voila!_" cried de Savignac. "Here he is. He'll make an indefatigable
hunter, like his mother--wait until he is two years old--He'll stand to
his day's work beside the best in France----"

"And what race is he? may I ask, Monsieur de Savignac."

"Gorgon--Gorgon of Poitou," he returned with enthusiasm. "They are
getting as rare now as this," he declared, nodding to the cobwebbed
bottle, as he rose, drew th