"Ah, yes," he said, "that melancholy little dog! Well, Brunet!"
"She has just breathed her last, mon Capitaine, and she is leaving behind her rather a large family."
"I am not surprised," said the officer.
"There are six," vouchsafed Brunet, "of which, if mon Capitaine is willing, I should like to keep one."
"Nonsense," said Sabron, "on no account. You know perfectly well, Brunet, that I don't surround myself with things that can make me suffer. I have not kept a dog in ten years. I try not to care about my horses even. Everything to which I attach myself dies or causes me regret and pain. And I won't have any miserable little puppy to complicate existence."
"Bien, mon Capitaine," accepted the ordonnance tranquilly. "I have given away five. The sixth is in the stable; if Monsieur le Capitaine would come down and look at it...."
Sabron rose, threw his cigarette away and, following across the garden in the bland May light, went into the stable where Madame Michette, a small wire-haired Irish terrier had given birth to a fine family and herself gone the way of those who do their duty to a race. In the straw at his feet Sabron saw a rat-like, unprepossessing little object, crawling about feebly in search of warmth and nourishment, uttering pitiful little cries. Its extreme loneliness and helplessness touched the big soldier, who said curtly to his man:
"Wrap it up, and if you don't know how to feed it I should not be surprised if I could induce it to take a little warm milk from a quill. At all events we shall have a try with it. Fetch it along to my rooms."
And as he retraced his steps, leaving his order to be executed, he thought to himself: The little beggar is not much more alone in the world than I am! As he said that he recalled a word in the meridional patois: Pitchouné, which means "poor little thing."
"I shall call it Pitchouné," he thought, "and we shall see if it can't do better than its name suggests."