The boy brought me some breakfast.
The names of the three dogs were Prince Coco and Bijou and Fifine. Prince Coco was rather old and fat. Fifine was a snappish little dog. I liked Bijou best, but they were all very proud and haughty with me. They were the kind of dogs that are called Pekinese. They said that was the finest kind of dog that any dog could be, and Prince Coco told me he and the others were very handsome and worth a great deal of money. (Money is what you give to people when you want to get something from them.)
He asked me what kind of a dog I was, and I had to tell him I didn’t know, I guessed I wasn’t any particular kind of a dog; and after that they were prouder with me than ever. Fifine said she thought it was very hard that they should have to associate with such a common little dog as I was. She said it was something she had never expected to do.
Prince Coco never was friendly with me, but Bijou was sometimes, if the other dogs weren’t there; but as soon as they came in he treated me in just the same sort of proud way the others did. It didn’t make me very happy, but I didn’t mind much.
One day Fifine was talking again about my being there. She was talking to Prince Coco, and I was under the sofa pretending to be asleep, but she knew I heard her. “I don’t see why our mistress allows him to stay,” she said. “He’s not at all like any dogs I ever associated with before. He’s just like those common little dogs we see running about the street when we go out riding in the automobile.”
Prince Coco yawned and stretched and rolled over on his side. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said. “He won’t be here much longer now.”
I pricked up my ears when I heard that.
“Why not?” asked Fifine.
“I heard the mistress talking this morning when Mary was brushing my hair. She said Tommy seemed so fond of ‘the little stray’ (as she called him) that she hadn’t had the heart to send him away just yet; but soon Tommy would be having a holiday and then they were all going off for a visit, and William was to give Muffins to a friend of his.”
(William was the man who made the automobile go, and Mary waited on the mistress.)