Note: Borderline speculative, being as it's a tale of madness and strange events. First published in Gil Blas, 20 March 1883, with the signture Maufrigneuse.

Synopsis: The narrator visits an insane asylum and hears the story of a patient, a man who is always calling his nonexistent dog, Mademoiselle Cocotte. Francis was formerly a coachman, who adopted a dog he was fond of. But she was constantly having puppies, and his employers grew tired of puppies everywhere and demanded that he drown Mademoiselle Cocotte; reluctantly, with remorse, he threw her in the Seine. But he was to gruesomely encounter her again, which drove him to insanity.