ved animals, gave her opinion and defended it shrewdly. So it
was decided that they should have a dog, a very small dog.

They began to look for one, but could find nothing but big dogs, who
would devour enough soup to make one shudder. The grocer of Rolleville
had one, a tiny one, but he demanded two francs to cover the cost of
sending it. Mme. Lefevre declared that she would feed a "quin," but would
not buy one.

The baker, who knew all that occurred, brought in his wagon one morning a
strange little yellow animal, almost without paws, with the body of a
crocodile, the head of a fox, and a curly tail--a true cockade, as
big as all the rest of him. Mme. Lefevre thought this common cur that
cost nothing was very handsome. Rose hugged it and asked what its name
was.

"Pierrot," replied the baker.

The dog was installed in an old soap box and they gave it some water
which it drank. They then offered it a piece of bread. He ate it. Mme.
Lefevre, uneasy, had an idea.

"When he is thoroughly accustomed to the house we can let him run. He can
find something to eat, roaming about the country."

They let him run, in fact, which did not prevent him from being famished.
Also he never barked except to beg for food, and then he barked
furiously.

Anyone might come into the garden, and Pierrot would run up and fawn on
each one in turn and not utter a bark.

Mme. Lefevre, however, had become accustomed to the animal. She even went
so far as to like it and to give it from time to time pieces of bread
soaked in the gravy on her plate.

But she had not once thought of the dog tax, and when they came to
collect eight francs--eight francs, madame--for this puppy who
never even barked, she almost fainted from the shock.

It was immediately decided that they must get rid of Pierrot. No one
wanted him. Every one declined to take him for ten leagues around. Then
they resolved, not knowing what else to do, to make him "piquer du mas."

"Piquer du mas" means to eat chalk. When one wants to get rid of a dog
they make him "Piquer du mas."

In the midst of an immense plain one sees a kind of hut, or rather a very
small roof standing above the ground. This is the entrance to the clay
pit. A big perpendicular hole is sunk for twenty metres underground and
ends in a series of long subterranean tunnels.

Once a year they go down into the quarry at the time they fertilize the
ground. The rest of the year it serves as a cemetery for cond