The boy looked at the ground and muttered in a low voice:
“No one wants to love me!”
Honorine took a small coin from her purse and gave it to Emile.
“See, I will give you this,” she said, “but only on condition that you won’t throw any more stones or dirt at anybody. If I learn that you have done it again, I will never give you anything more.”
“Not cherries?”
“Neither cherries nor anything else; now go.”
Ami listened to this conversation, seated on his haunches, with the gravity of an examining magistrate. Then he followed Honorine to the garden gate, where she turned and said to him:
“Are you coming in with me, good dog? No; you won’t. Your master isn’t with you, so you came all by yourself to pay me a visit; that was very nice of you. When you choose to come again, just scratch at this gate, and you will always be welcome.”
Ami, who seemed to understand her words perfectly, yelped once or twice, then bounded away toward the Tower, barking loudly and joyously.