The death doctor drove out to her estate and was soon in the house carrying a little black bag. That was a mistake. It should have been a large pastel bag. When the old woman saw the little black bag, she paled visibly. The unnecessary reality of it scared her, so she sent the veterinarian away with a generous cheque in his pocket.

Alas, having the veterinarian go away did not solve the dog’s basic problem: He was so senile that death had become a way of life and he was lost from the act of dying.

The next day the dog walked into the corner of a room and couldn’t get out of it. The dog stood there for hours until it collapsed from exhaustion, which conveniently happened to be just when the old woman came into the room, looking for the keys to her Rolls-Royce.

She started crying when she saw the dog lying there like a mutt puddle in the corner. Its face was still pressed against the wall and its eyes were watering in some human kind of way that dogs get when they live with people too long and pick up their worst characteristics.

She had her maid carry the dog to his rug. The dog had a Chinese rug that he had slept on since he was a puppy in China before the fall of Chiang Kai-shek. The rug had been worth a thousand American dollars, then, having survived a dynasty or two.

The rug was worth a lot more now, being in rather excellent shape with actually no more wear and tear than it would get being stored in a castle for a couple of centuries.

The old woman called the veterinarian again and he arrived with his little black bag of tricks and how to find the way back to death after having lost it for years, years that led oneself to being trapped in the corner of a room.

‘Where is your pet?’ he said.

‘On his rug,’ she said.

The dog lay exhausted and sprawled across beautiful Chinese flowers and things from a different world. ‘Please do it on his rug,’ she said. ‘I think he would like that.’

‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. He won’t feel a thing. It’s painless. Just like falling asleep.’

‘Good-bye, Charlie,’ the old woman said. The dog of course didn’t hear her. He had been deaf since 1959.

After bidding the dog farewell, the old woman took to bed. She left the room just as the veterinarian was opening his little black bag. The veterinarian needed PR help desperately.