"I didn't know poodles came that small."

"They keep making them smaller. He's a miniature, but he's actually smaller than the usual run of minis. I think the Japanese are getting into the field. I think they're doing something cunning with transistors."

Carolyn doesn't normally do short jokes for fear of casting the first stone. If she wore high heels she might hit five-one, but she doesn't. She has Dutch-cut dark-brown hair and Delft-blue eyes, and she's built along the lines of a fire hydrant, no mean asset in the dog-grooming trade.

"Poor Prince," she said. "The breeders keep picking out runts and cross-breeding them until they come up with something like this. And of course they breed for color, too. Prince Val's not just a mini poodle. He's an apricot mini poodle. Where the hell's his owner, anyway? What time is it?"

"Quarter to six."

"She's fifteen minutes late. Another fifteen and I'm locking up."

"What'll you do with Prince Valiant? Bring him home with you?"

"Are you kidding? The cats would eat him for breakfast. Ubi might coexist with him but Archie'd disembowel him just to keep in practice. No, if she doesn't show by six it's Doggie Dannemora for the Prince. He can spend the night in a cage."

That should have been Val's cue to give a cute little yap of protest, but he just stood there like a dummy. I suggested his color was less like an apricot than a glass of bourbon and soda, and Carolyn said, "Jesus, don't remind me, I'll start drooling like one of Pavlov's finest." Then the door chimes sounded and a woman with blue-rinsed gray hair came strutting in to collect her pet.

I went back to The Pet Dealer while they settled Val's tab. Then his owner clipped one end of a rhinestone-studded leash to the beast's collar. They walked off together, turning fast when they hit the pavement and probably bound for Stewart House, a large co-op apartment building that runs heavily to blue-rinsed gray hair, with or without an apricot poodle on the side.