On the bus tonight I was accosted by a drunken co-ed Twins fan. After she called me a hater and played with my beard, I patted her on the back and she was diverted elsewhere in her drunken mania.

'Besides, he does not need food, but I do.'

A characteristic final sentence.

You know who I blame? The system!

I have a new bag which closes with large velcro straps and which are resoundingly, conspicuously loud. Tonight on the bus as I opened it a little boy sitting in front of me turned around, affecting an adultish look that said something like: what you have there is quite interesting to me.

A man boarded the bus tonight and proceeded to pick his nose in a vacant, agitated way, not at all covertly inspecting each find before he ate it. On his way down the aisle when leaving, he lightly touched three of the handrails.

—The heightened tension caused by having pulled the cord for a stop when the bus is caught at an intervening light.

'Eternally asleep, his dreams walk about the city where he persists incognito.'

'A dog wandered in, half mastiff, half pointer, its fur yellow and mangy, tongue hanging from its mouth. What should they do? Not a bell in sight, and their servant was deaf as a stone! They were shivering furiously but didn't dare budge for fear of getting bitten.

Pécuchet thought it wise to shout threats, rolling his eyes. The dog started barking and jumping about the scale, while Pécuchet, clinging to the ropes and folding up his legs, tried to stay as high up off the ground as possible.

"You're not doing it right," said Bouvard. And he began making ingratiating faces at the animal and uttering coaxing sounds. The dog evidently understood. It tried to lick the man's face, clamped its paws on his shoulders, and scratched them with its nails.

"Oh, great! Now look - he's got my underwear!"

The dog circled over the garment and lay down.

Finally, with utmost precaution, they ventured, one to come down off his scale, the other to climb out of the tub. And when Pécuchet was dressed, this exclamation escaped from his lips: "You, my dear fellow, will come in very handy for our experiments!"

What experiments?

They could inject the dog with phosphorus, then shut it in a cellar to see if it would breathe fire through its snout. But how would they inject it? And besides, no one would sell them phosphorus.'