Not long after these incidents—­three or four days at the latest—­ a party of my fellow-students came to smoke with me, and as the shell always sounds of the sea, our conversation naturally savoured of our professional pursuits.  We discussed our hospital chefs, their crotchets, their inventions, their medical successes, their politics; we criticised new methods of operation, related anecdotes of the theatre and consulting-room, and speculated on the chances of men about to go up for examination.  Then we touched on the subject of obscure diseases, unusual mental conditions, prolonged delirium, and kindred topics.  It was at this point that one of us, Eugene Grellois, a house-surgeon at a neighbouring hospital, remarked,—­

“By the way, we have a curious case now in the women’s ward of my service, a pretty little Alsatian girl of eighteen or twenty.  She was knocked down by a cart about three weeks ago and was brought in with a fracture of the neck of the left humerus, and two ribs broken.  Well, there was perforation of the pleura, traumatic pleurisy and fever, and her temperature went up as high as 41-8.  She was delirious for three days, and talked incessantly; we had to put her in a separate cabinet, so that the other patients might not be disturbed.  I sat by her bed for hours and listened.  You never heard such odd things as she said.  She let me into the whole of her history that way.  I don’t think I should have cared for it though, if she were not so wonderfully pretty!”

“Was it a love story, Eugene?” asked Auguste Villemin, laughing.

“Not a bit of it; it was all about a dog who seemed to be her pet.  Such an extraordinary dog!  From what she said I gathered that he was a brown poodle, that he could stand on his head, and walk on his hind paws, that he followed her about wherever she went, that he carved in wood for illustrated books and journals, that he wore a silver collar, that she was engaged to be married to him when he had earned enough to keep house, and that his name was Antoine!”

All his hearers laughed except myself.  As for me, my heart bounded, my face flushed, I was sensible of a keen sensation of pleasure in hearing Eugene describe his patient as “wonderfully pretty.”  I leapt from my chair, pointed to Pepin, who lay dozing in a corner of the room, and exclaimed,—­

“I will wager anything that the name of your Alsatian is Noemi Bergeron, and that my dog there is Antoine himself!” And before any questions could be put I proceeded to recount the circumstances with which my reader is already acquainted.  Of course Pepin was immediately summoned into the midst of the circle we had formed round the open window to have his reputed accomplishments tested as a criterion of his identity with Antoine.  Amid bursts of laughter and a clamour of encouragement and approbation, it was discovered that my canine protege possessed at least the first two of the qualifications imputed to him, and could walk on his hind legs or stand on his head for periods apparently unlimited.