Rodney made a good point about the misery of being stuck in a carrying case for a whole transatlantic flight. For some reason, airlines frown on dogs traveling in the cabins of planes, so they stow them in a pressurized hold down below, separated from everything and everyone familiar. On his first trip, when he was just a few months old, Gulliver spent the whole flight shivering in terror. Fortunately, Professor Rattigan noticed his condition at the airport in Paris, and for the flight back, and every subsequent flight, he’d given Gulliver a tranquilizer.

They always took the overnight flight, and this year, as usual, Gulliver didn’t come out of his sleepy haze till they were in a cab heading for their Parisian apartment. It was in a lovely neighborhood called Saint-Germain, where the average building was far shorter than the average building in Manhattan. So instead of living on the seventeenth floor, they lived on the fifth. And instead of a doorman, the building was watched over by a little gray-haired woman called a “concierge.” And instead of a wood-paneled elevator, they rode up in a sort of bronze birdcage.

Though smaller than theirs, the French professor’s apartment had its charms, notably the living-room sofa. It was upholstered in horsehair, which was miraculously warm on cool days and miraculously cool on hot days. After their morning walk in the nearby Luxembourg Gardens, Professor Rattigan would retire to the study to work on his novel and Gulliver would settle on the horsehair sofa. It had an excellent view of a wall covered by a medieval tapestry that featured a queenly figure with two elegant whippets at her feet.

But it was the evenings, not the days, that made Paris special. In July, Paris can be steamy, but although the sun stays up till after ten o’clock, things usually begin to cool off around eight. This was when they headed back out. They walked over to the river and turned west, passing bright yellow postboxes and bright red-and-white fire hydrants. Soon the blue-and-white-striped awning of Le Petit Café came into view — and both of their hearts beat faster.

It would be hard to say which of them enjoyed their evenings at the café more. Professor Rattigan had the company of the beautiful Madeline de Crecy, who taught English literature at a nearby university called the Sorbonne. Professor de Crecy was allergic to long-haired dogs, so even if Gulliver had wanted to sit obediently under their table, he wouldn’t have been allowed to. But why would he want to do that when he could flirt with a stunning Maltese over by the door to the kitchen?

Few things in life are sweeter than being able to impress the dog you love. The only places Chloe had ever been to were Paris and the sleepy French seaside village where Madame Courgette spent August, when the restaurant was closed. Gulliver, too, divided his time between only two places. But his two places were Paris and New York. How could Chloe compete? She could tell him about the fishing nets pulled up on the beach and the joys of splashing in the backwash and chasing seagulls. But he had the greatest city in the world at his bark and call.

Just across from the restaurant an ancient stone bridge spanned the river Seine. It could hardly have been more picturesque, but compared to the soaring bridges of New York City — the Brooklyn Bridge, for instance, or the George Washington Bridge — it was a toy. To the west of the restaurant the Eiffel Tower loomed up. But impressive as it was, it was barely half as tall as the Empire State Building. Gulliver had never splashed in the sea or chased a gull, but he’d seen the Statue of Liberty and the United Nations, and he lived right on Fifth Avenue. And though Cheveux de Chien, the Parisian groomer his professor took him to once every July, was perfectly nice, it wasn’t half as up-to-date as Groom-o-rama.

Madame Courgette treated him like a prince. He and his professor came to the café almost every night during July, and his professor always ordered many courses and expensive bottles of wine and left American-sized tips. So at least once every evening Madame Courgette would slip Gulliver some delicacy, a perfectly cooked medallion of pork, or a nicely sautéed piece of veal.

In fact, life in Paris was so pleasant that Gulliver always hated to see the month come to an end.

“I wish you would come over to visit,” he would tell Chloe.

“Moi aussi,” Chloe would say. “Me, too.”

This year his last evening at Le Petit Café was more sentimental than usual. He wasn’t as young a dog as he used to be; he really would have liked to make his relationship with Chloe more permanent. And Chloe looked particularly fetching with two pale pink ribbons in her hair. So he told her he wished Madame Courgette would open a restaurant in New York. “It would do great business, I’m sure. New Yorkers love French cuisine.”

Chloe reminded him that Madame Courgette spoke no English. Then she let out a lovely sigh and said she couldn’t believe they wouldn’t see each other for almost seven (dog) years.

It was all very distressful. But at the same time highly enjoyable.

By coincidence, Professor Rattigan was experiencing feelings very similar to Gulliver’s. Every year, as July wound down, he would try to convince Professor de Crecy to move to New York. Her English was perfect: New York University would be lucky to get her. But she always said she was happy with her job in Paris.

This year, after their dessert dishes were cleared away, Professor Rattigan laid his hand over hers. Like Gulliver, he wasn’t as young as he used to be. In fact, he’d recently had to yank some gray hairs out of his blond beard.

He took a healthy swig of his cognac. “Tell me, Madeline,” he said, “would you consider coming to New York as my wife?”