Once he made a bad mistake: trotting up to a bright blue shop-sign one day when the smell was drowned by car exhaust, instead of a butcher's shop he ran into the Polubizner Brothers' electrical goods store on Myasnitzkaya Street. There the brothers taught him all about insulated cable, which can be sharper than a cabman's whip. This famous occasion may be regarded as the beginning of Sharik's education. It was here on the pavement that Sharik began to realise that 'blue' doesn't always mean 'butcher', and as he squeezed his burningly painful tail between his back legs and howled, he remembered that on every butcher's shop the first letter on the left was always gold or brown, bow-legged, and looked like a toboggan.

    After that the lessons were rather easier. 'A' he learned from the barber on the comer of Mokhovaya Street, followed by 'B' (there was always a policeman standing in front of the last four letters of the word). Corner shops faced with tiles always meant 'CHEESE' and the black half-moon at the beginning of the word stood for the name of their former owners 'Chichkin'; they were full of mountains of red Dutch cheeses, salesmen who hated dogs, sawdust on the floor and reeking Limburger.

    If there was accordion music (which was slightly better than 'Celeste Aida'), and the place smelted of frankfurters, the first letters on the white signboards very conveniently | spelled out the word 'NOOB', which was short for 'No obscene language. No tips.' Sometimes at these places fights would break out, people would start punching each other in the face with their fists - sometimes even with napkins or boots.

    If there were stale bits of ham and mandarin oranges in the window it meant a grrr . . . grrocery. If there were black bottles full of evil liquids it was . . . li-li-liquor . . . formerly Eliseyev Bros.

    The unknown gentleman had led the dog to the door of his luxurious flat on the mezzanine floor, and rang the doorbell. The dog at once looked up at a big, black, gold-lettered nameplate hanging beside a pink frosted-glass door. He deciphered the first three letters at once: P-R-O- 'Pro . . .', but after tliat there was a funny tall thing with a cross bar which he did not know. Surely he's not a proletarian? thought Sharik with amazement... He can't be. He lifted up his nose, sniffed the fur coat and said firmly to himself:

    No, this doesn't smell proletarian. Some high-falutin' word. God knows what it means.